


A Matter of Opportunity

by gentlesquid_andink



Category: The Brave (TV 2017)
Genre: Doctor/Patient, Dom/sub Undertones, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, M/M, Medical Kink, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Slow Burn, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-04-27 23:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14436114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlesquid_andink/pseuds/gentlesquid_andink
Summary: Wounds go through four stages of healing - but only if you follow doctor's orders...ORHow the good doc helps his patients, independently and together.





	1. The Hemostasis Phase

**Author's Note:**

> The Dalton/McG pairing is not canon. I knoooooow. It's not even why *I'm* here. But bear with me? Or at least go rewatch the scene in Episode 8 ("Stealth") after Dalton gets to the rendezvous point under some badass cover fire only to protest McG’s attention to his bruised ribs. Yes, yes, he is clearly in a lot of pain (with Mike Vogel acting the fuck out of it). Pain is not my thing. How he reacts to safety and McG’s attention, though? Well THAT just dug down deep into me and would not. let. go. Ahem. I blame logictron and the Fab 5, whoever they be, for Going There. ::fans face::
> 
> No sexytimes for these boys, alas. Just Jalton endgame and intimacy all around. Hold on to your...whatever you got...and give it a go?

The first time Jaz found herself in need of their medic’s attention, she had twisted her ankle in a bad fall. It was an otherwise smooth mission three months into her first tour with Omega Team Seven. She knew she would need to find her groove with the team - she was new, young, and a woman. There was a long list of frustrations fueling Jaz as they headed back to the jet. Jaz resented her body and physics and the law of averages, even though she didn’t even really belief in "average." Perhaps mistaking her impatience and frustration for pain, McG asked her if she was good until they got back to base. “Yeah. It’s fine.” 

“Okay then,” was his easy reply. “I’ll take a look there.” 

“I said it’s fine.”

“Jaz.” Dalton’s sharp interjection defined where the line was. His public rebuke pushed her into the blank stillness of sniper mode, staring into the mid-distance between them, both hyper-aware and yet somehow detached from her surroundings. She caught McG glare at their CO and the way Dalton dipped his chin in response. She had no idea what that meant but figured she didn’t need to understand. She’d been given orders.

}{}{}{

Now she sat on a counter as McG fiddled with some supplies. He seemed to just be moving medical things from one shelf to another, but Jaz didn’t mind. It gave her a moment to breathe in, breathe out, and marshal her parasympathetic responses.

McG glanced over at her once, twice. When she had relaxed her shoulders and stilled her fidgeting hands against the counter on either side of her seat, he moved over in front of her. McG kneeled down and tugged on the laces of her boot. Jaz didn’t quite quiet the hiss of pain when the movement jarred her foot. The medic stopped with a lace between each forefinger and thumb and looked up at Jaz with a slight grimace. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He waited, watching her face. She didn’t understand what he was waiting for, so she nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m gonna go slow, okay?”

“It’s just a sprain. You can take off the damn boot.”

McG moved one large handle to cradle her Achilles while he eased the boot off. “Doesn’t mean it has to hurt more than it already does, though.” He removed her sock carefully as well. “There we go.”

He rotated her foot and probed a bit while she followed his instructions to move it this way, then that. He winced along with her when she jerked and “MMmm”ed. “That’s a sprain alright. Nothing seems to be torn, but I want you to keep it wrapped for a full week.” She rolled her eyes at that. Of course she got an extended treatment for a simple injury.

McG stood up. “Ice and elevation - you know the drill?”

“Not my first. Yes, I know the drill.”

“Well, darling, firsts with me are always full of tender care.” He handed her an ace bandage and a stack of cold packs. “Make you a deal, though. You stick to the routine for three days and I won’t recommend anything official.”

She must have looked skeptical because McG crossed his heart and raised a two-fingered salute. She scoffed, “No way you were a boy scout.”

The rascal smirk was back, followed by an entirely too earnest expression for someone in elite forces. “Won’t even make you check in with Medical.”

Jaz hopped down off the counter, landing carefully on her left foot, and grabbed her bundle of supplies to go take care of herself. 

McG stayed in place, didn’t try to keep her or to follow. “We have a deal?”

What else could she do? “Deal.”

Jaz didn't know him well enough yet to know what his angle was. Avoid paperwork? Keep the injury count down for the team? He was Canadian; maybe he actually cared. She didn’t know if she could get used to that. She wanted to, though. Maybe. Elijah said she did and he was usually right about her. Knew this shit long before she did. 

}{}{}{

That night as she was clearing the table, Top joined her after everyone else cleared out. He brushed past her with dirty plates in hand and asked a bit too casually, “McG fix you up?”

Jaz paused a beat to tamp down her temper at being babied. “Yes, sir.”

“He’s a good doc. I know you don’t yet, but you can trust him.”

Jaz dumped the last of the dirty dishes next to the sink. Let Top finish cleaning up, then, if he was going to use this as an excuse to teach her some kind of lesson.

“He won’t do anything without getting you on board first. You get to call the shots unless you ask him to. He’ll make sure you figure that out with him.”

But Jaz was already turning into her room.

}{}{}{

The first time Jaz noticed what Top might really mean about trusting the doc, they were in a safe house mid-op. 

They were running through their supply stock, figuring out priorities, and checking on any consequences of their brawl that necessitated field dressing. McG went down the list. “Ok, who got banged up? Elijah?”

“These butterflies are holding. It’s gonna be ugly, but I’m good.”

“Aw, you’ll be back to charming the locals in no time, beautiful. Preach? Where you at?”

He raised his left hand in the air while continuing to rustle through a bag of tech gear. “Clear.”

Jaz had been far away from the scuffle on overwatch; McG still bounced his eyes off her, though, assuring himself she wasn’t harmed. Made her feel partly exposed, partly warm inside. All the way confused about his whole approach.

“Top?”

Their CO didn’t look up from the map he had spread out on the table, hand rubbing his forehead. “I’m good. Let’s try to -”

McG huffed and moved over to Top’s side. “Come on, I saw you take that sweep. Back of your head bounced right off the pavement.”

Dalton moved across the room to grab the notebook full of intel they had recovered. When he tried to return to the map, though, McG was blocking his access. Top blew air out and tried to reach around him, but didn’t order the medic to stand down. McG pitched his voice low, “Come on, just let me take a quick look. No way you don’t have a concussion, fine. But let me see what we’re dealing with, okay? Just assessment - we'll go from there.”

Jaz saw how Preach and Elijah had made themselves busy, but she couldn’t look away. Dalton clenched his fist and nodded so slightly, Jaz almost wasn’t sure it had happened. McG checked his pupils and snapped his fingers beside each ear. “Any vomiting or nausea?”

“No.”

“Any amnesia or confusion?”

“ _ **No.**_ ” Top was forceful, but stayed still under McG’s attention.

“You feeling dizzy? Any headache?”

“Yes - look, you’re right. I got walloped and banged my head pretty bad when I fell. Pretty sure it’s a mild concussion, though. I can get through the op.”

McG put his hand square on Top’s chest and commanded, “Anything changes - any nausea, any coordination issues, any fuzziness at all in that head of yours - you tell me.”

Jaz thought he would argue that they were wasting time, that there wasn’t really anything to do for a concussion, that this was merely an inconvenience and what really mattered was achieving their mission goal. But instead, he took a careful slow breath. “Yeah, Doc.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. You got it.”

McG nodded and headed over to Elijah like nothing had happened. Dalton looked over at Jaz and raised his eyebrow as if to challenge her open look of confusion. Like, _yeah - what?_ She shook herself out of it and resumed her ammunition check. She didn't need to understand why Top let McG handle him like that. It was a mild concussion, they were going to kick some more ass and then head home. No need to pause, no need to worry. It was just McG's job to clear the possibilities.

}{}{}{

Back on base, Preach put himself on grill duty while Elijah and Jaz teamed up against McG at the horseshoe pitch. They ate and played and teased each other with the feverish edge of adrenaline still coursing through them. The mission had ended, they had secured the package and averted international fallout, but this one had been rough. The plan had required more brute physical force than usual. So when dinner had ended and Elijah had to drag Jaz to get her up on her feet, and Preach felt his own post-mission crash settling into his bones, the move to their bunks was swift. 

McG forced his eyes from their drooping and broke off with the rest of the team to head towards the kitchen. Top had been in some nasty hand-to-hand and deserved some follow up care.

“You still up?”

Top was scratching out notes, papers spread across the table before him. “Yep. Need to get these outlined before the sequence of events starts to fade.”

McG decided to come at this sideways first, give Top a chance to choose recovery and sleep over stubborn overworking. He walked over to the fridge to grab some ice for a glass. “Those memories getting fuzzy?”

“No.”

“Any dizziness? That was a pretty hard hit to the back of your skull.”

He paused just the slightest before answering, “No. It’s fine.” Their deal involved honesty, though, and that slight pause was telling. McG put the glass of ice water down on the table and walked over to kneel down next to Adam.

Which is where he was when Jaz emerged from the hall. It was just a routine medical move: maneuver the head to check for distortion of balance, check pupil responses to changes in the light. Jaz had seen him - and plenty of other medics - do it before. But something about the way his hands curved around Top’s jaw, cradling his head. There was an obvious amount of tenderness transmitted from the doctor’s bare hands to their CO’s skin. 

Maybe it wasn’t just first times with McG that were full of tender care...

McG brushed a thumb over his cheek and quietly asked, “Headache still pretty bad?”

“Yes.” He admitted. “But not worse than expected.” 

The doctor took on an authoritative voice rarely heard amid his usual macho jokes. “Expected isn't the same as deserved. What you need is a good night’s rest, Adam. I’ll come wake you up in a few hours instead, though. You're good, but you're gonna let me make sure.” Top breathed in deep at the proclamation that he was "good." That was always hard to hear. Without further protest, though, Top gathered the report paperwork into a tidy stack, preparing to follow the medic’s advice. McG stood up and moved back to grab his glass, grabbing a bottle of Tylenol, as well. He clasped the CO’s left shoulder from behind on his way back.

“Isn’t that right, Jazzy?” McG felt Top’s shoulder ripple under his hand. He let his hand press down more firmly. Adam relaxed into the pressure. Knew the doctor was taking care of him.

Jaz hadn’t realized she’d slipped into ninja mode and felt the full awkwardness of semi-accidental voyeurism. She scrambled towards the sink. “Just getting some water.”

“That’s a good idea after the day we had. Here,” McG handed Adam his own glass with the meds as he started off towards his bunk.

Adam stood. “Night, Jaz.”

She turned to watch Top follow McG. “Night, Top.”


	2. Inflammatory Phase I

Dalton wasn’t new to command. He hadn’t just been a top shotter - he had what they called “leadership potential” right from the get go. He tried not to think about how those skills had been shaped by the need to survive childhood when one parent was dead and the other a useless drunk. He was meticulous, but flexible in the heat of the moment; he inspired others to work together, but could keep everyone within bounds; he was strategically brilliant, yet listened to others. Of course he was promoted up the ranks.

If there was one flaw consistently noticed by those in charge of Adam Dalton’s future, it was that he displayed a certain disregard at times for his own well-being. He was Army. Many of their recruits had issues in their past; they all learned they were part of something bigger or they flamed out. 

No one had a problem with Dalton’s disregard for “self-care” if it meant he kept making mission goals in record time.

}{}{}{}{

McG had a problem. Dalton refused to build any kind of personal medical protocol - or even a basic relationship with his team medic. He couldn’t get Dalton to force the issue because he never seemed to legitimately need McG’s medical training. Damn man never so much as sneezed. I mean, sure, it was a good thing Top was able to avoid needing medical intervention. Ideally, they would have established a rapport before he was seriously injured in the field, though. And with this job, that was bound to happen sooner or later. 

Meanwhile, he’d figured out that Preach liked to know the science behind treatments. Not because he trusted them more that way, he was just genuinely curious. He would come back at McG weeks later with new information about the benefits of algae in bandaging open wounds after discussing slow progress on his own open blisters. McG encouraged the conversations not just to build a rapport with the man, but because it kept him up to date in his own professional learning.

The other new kid, Elijah, was purely concerned with function: When could get back to training? Would there be long-term damage? How could he stayed ripped but without those weird veins popping out? That had been a turnoff for someone, but McG didn’t ask. Still: better he kept coming to McG with too much information than not enough.

Their CO, though. Dalton was tough to crack. And he was worried what that might mean come time to make decisions in the field. Doing no harm fucking sucked sometimes.

}{}{}{}{

They weren’t on mission, as it happened, the first time Dalton needed McG’s attention. The doctor was sorting through a new shipment and getting ready to restock the field kits. He liked to keep the full set prepped - you never knew when a series of missions would give them little time for such things in between. He heard Preach coming across the hut admonishing someone. “Yes, you do. And you’re going to do what he says is best, too.”

McG looked up. Adam Dalton was being ushered by his comrade - and friend, the medic had picked up on their close relationship. It looked like Dalton was holding a t-shirt against his arm.

“Hey. What’s up?”

It was Preach who spoke. “Dalton needs you. Sliced open his arm. Pretty sure he needs stitches.”

Dalton made a face at that in protest. “Not true. I throw some butterfly bandages on and it’ll be fine.” Preach just shook his head, hand still holding Dalton’s bicep. McG noticed that, noticed everything that might help him diagnose this one. He was in this for the long game.

“It’s your right arm?” 

“Yes?” Dalton gestured with it a bit and hid the ensuing wince pretty darn well.

“That’s your dominant arm. Thank you, Preach.” His tone was firm; the man nodded his way and left them alone. McG deliberately turned away from Dalton, instead walking back towards the table where his supply cache was piled.

“I have to agree with Preach. I think you need stitches.”

Dalton stayed standing where Preach left him. “No. I don’t. I got this.”

“If it’s too deep,” McG nodded at the bloody shirt, “A few bandaids isn’t gonna cut it.” Silence. McG would go so far as to characterize it as “stony.” 

“Come on, Top. If it were any of us, you’d be insisting - you’d _command_ care, if necessary.”

“But it’s not, it’s me. I’m still calling this one.”

“AR600-20. Chapter 5-4.c.(1) - Command aspects of medical care.”

Dalton threw up his unmangled hand in the air, turning away from McG. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Sorry - regulations back me up on this one. Your dominant arm out of commission puts your fitness for duty into question. I can get Patricia on the sat-link or we can go over to hospital command if you want...” It was a gamble, he knew. No way McG wanted to get either of them involved. But he had a hypothesis to investigate...

Dalton paced once, over to the wall and back. McG thought he might go for the hall, but he came back within a few feet of the doc. “So what’s your plan?” Clipped, controlled - but not happy. Not inviting any help yet, that’s for damn sure.

“Our plan.”

Dalton shook his head. “Come again?”

“My plan is for us to figure out how to work this out _together._ ” McG opened his arms slightly at his sides, palms out, shoulders relaxes. Tried to show with his body that he wasn’t a threat. Willed Dalton to decide that he could be a good ally for helping him take care of himself.

“You want us to treat my severed arteries _together_?”

“Hey, it’s your body, man.” McG started fiddling with some supplies, moving them around the table into categories: bandages, medication, tools and implements. He glanced at Dalton a few times, but mostly let him work out what he was going to do next. He really didn’t want to have to force his CO into accepting treatment. That was just bad policy all around, but especially on a strike team. They both needed to know they could trust each other even when they felt most vulnerable. And for Dalton, like so many other soldiers in charge of awesome responsibility, that meant when he was physically injured.

McG heard a shuffle and paused to look up. Dalton was standing there with his bleeding forearm out. He wasn’t even holding down the cloth hastily wrapped around it - just held it out between them. The medic sprang into a bit of action at that; lack of pressure was self-sabotage. 

“Yo, you gotta keep that pressed down - you know that!” McG took Dalton’s left hand in his and clamped it down over the offending wound. Dalton did as he was told; if anything he stilled while standing there. Waiting for McG to take lead. 

“Is this some kind of suggestion?” McG nodded at the arm. 

“It’s - there’s a...Cut’s pretty deep.” Okay, McG was expecting resentful silence, maybe some more clipped sarcasm. He wasn’t prepared for this bumbling turnabout. Moved him along towards affirming his hypothesis, though.

That was all it took for him to gentle his tone. “Yeah, I know.” All earnestness and acknowledgement that this sucked. 

Dalton closed his eyes and worked his jaw. “I think I need stitches.”

“Well that might be true, yeah. Can I take a look? Assess how bad it is? Then we can decide together.” McG held his hands up and waited for Top to nod once, quick and short. He held his reluctant patient’s wrist with his left hand and reached for the wound with his right. Had to lift Dalton’s hand up to move the makeshift bandage out of the way. Dalton sucked in a breath at that and McG opened the fingers circling his wrist instinctively. Holding down an injured soldier was a bad idea. 

“No it’s - s’ok.”

“Good. Thank you for telling me, Adam - sounded kinda painful.”

Dalton shook his head, this time a little looser. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

McG was examining the cut, back to holding his wrist, rather delicately. “Well, yeah, but still.” He sounded so matter of fact. Like he knew Adam could take it, could take a lot. Also like he truly believed he should be spared the discomfort and pain. 

The wound turned out to be shallower than McG expected. Might have actually gotten away fine with some bandages pulling the edges together. No way he was gambling their future relationship on Adam knowing that.

“Ok, here’s what I see. The cut is long and it was pretty bloody. You missed the major blood vessels, but it looks like you nicked enough to make this look worse than it maaaaybe is.”

He looked at his patient who was standing almost at parade rest, minus the injured arm. He looked like he was listening, which was an improvement on ten minutes ago. He also looked like he was waiting for McG to continue.

“If it were me - I would get the stitches. They’d help with healing both in terms of speed and avoiding re-injuring the site. But you’re right, butterfly bandages could probably keep this adequately closed.” He made sure Dalton was looking him in the eye for this next bit. “It’s up to you.”

“You threw regulation at me and _now_ it’s up to me? What the hell!?”

“It’s always up to you, Adam. I’m not going to tell you what to do - not unless you’re dying or you ask me to make the call. But you gotta talk to me, okay?”

Top nodded.

“And you have to promise to really assess the situation - not just what you what the situation to be.”

Top rubbed his beard in the hand of his uninjured arm. “I can do that.”

McG chuckled. “Top shotter, youngest commander of an omega strike team. Yeah you can do that!”

Alcohol sterilization, local anesthesia, and 13 stitches later, McG was giving standard follow-up advice. “I think that’s it.” When Top stayed standing there in the middle of McG’s medical area, he added, “You did good.” and clapped him on the back.

Top shuffled a little bit at that and licked his lips. McG took notice and filed that away for later use. Seemed like he might be making progress.

}{}{}{}{

McG sat down on the couch next to Top, almost dead center. “So what works for you?”

“Good bourbon. A great ass. Long walks on the beach.”

“Well, hell. If I were trying to date you, I’d have it in the bag…”

“I don’t know, McG. You gotta give me some context.”

“I’m trying to build a medical relationship here, Top. Figure out what’s going on that head so I can approach you in ways that don’t have you flipping out over a small laceration. Or, you know, a near-fatal bullet wound 1,000 miles from here.”

Dalton let out a rush of air and leaned forward onto his knees. “I like that you let me make the call. Stay in charge of my own damn self when and if at all possible.”

_Hunh,_ thought McG. It wasn’t that it didn’t fit the growing pattern, just…

“Really?” He squinted sideways at his CO. “Because you also seem to like it when I tell you what to do.”

Top ran his hands across his face, hung his head in them still hunched over his knees. “Yeah.”

“I get it, Adam.” There was some sort of growl of dissent from the CO next to him. “I do! It’s easier when you don’t have to choose something you think you don’t need. Or shouldn’t want. Something that seems...extravagant. I promise you, looking after yourself isn’t a luxury. And you get to make those calls - always, that’s non-negotiable unless you’re dying. But I’m here to help you do that.” Big speech over, McG gave Adam’s shoulder a hearty pat. Rubbed his hand down his back a few times until Adam sat up. 

“Yeah? Not exactly how I would have described the role of medic to new recruits.”

“Eh. Neither of us is very new, are we?”

Dalton chuckled at that. “Thanks, man. I’ll try to be good, I swear.”

McG quirked a grin at that and stood up to go start KP duty. “I am going to hold you to that.”

}{}{}{}{

McG was woken up by an insistent knock. Not there’s-an-emergency knocking, but still. Insistent enough to wake him up.

He padded over and opened the door, expecting Elijah to be glaring at him in warning with false allegations of the nasally-boisterous variety. Instead, Top stood there huddled in his sleep pants and tee, trying to hold in the shivers.

“I don’t feel good.” He coughed right on cue.

“You throwing up, too?” Top nodded in the negative. “Achey?” Another shake of his head, followed by groaning.

“I feel terrible, whatever it is.”

“You look fucking terrible, man.”

That had Top turning around to return to his own bunk.

“Aw, hey, no - come here!” McG pulled him inside by the arm. “I didn’t mean there wasn’t anything we could do to make you feel better.” The doctor sat him down on his bed. He grabbed a fresh shirt and brought it over to Adam. “Yours looks sweaty. Why don’t you change and I’ll go grab some decongestant?”

When he came back from his short trip to the supply closet, Adam was in his borrowed shirt and had scooted over the end of the bed to lean his back against the wall, knees drawn up. McG popped a couple sudafed out of the plastic. Without opening his eyes, Adam explained, “If I put my head down, it feels like it might explode or something.”

“Yeah. That would be a sinus infection. Take these. Finish the water.”

When he finished drinking, the arm holding the glass eased down onto the bed. McG made grabby hands, “Give that here.” He moved the glass away and then leaned over to feel Adam’s forehead. He didn’t learn anything new, really; it was obvious he had a fever to go with the swollen sinuses. “Are you hot or cold? I know you have a fever and it might keep changing.” 

Adam whined in the back of his throat. The sound just served to emphasize how much mucus was stuck in his head at the moment. 

“Cold. ‘M cold.” Adam felt a weight dip in the bed and opened his eyes. McG was gathering the blanket and wrapping it on top of him. He closed his eyes again. “Here, move forward a sec?” A pillow was propped behind his head. Then the bed shifted again and Adam waited to stop feeling whoozy. 

A moment later, McG returned with a second blanket. Then he propped another pillow in his lap and up across his chest. Adam automatically wrapped his arms around it. “Go ahead. The weight can be pretty calming. Should help you stay upright if you drift off while waiting for the sudafed to kick in.”

And then he climbed up near the head of the narrow bed and sat parallel to Adam, covering himself with the other blanket. 

Adam was somewhat mortified at the inconvenience he was causing. He was also exhausted and really, somewhat perversely, glad that McG wasn’t leaving. But still:

“What are you - you don’t need to stay here.”

“Adam? You’re in my bed.”

When Top shuffled like he was going to get up, McG reached over to grab his arm in protest. A dry comment too late, he remembered that sarcasm and teasing were lost on him when he wasn’t well. That wasn’t the right approach here. “Don't - don't go? This is what I do. It’s my team, too. And besides: you promised you would try to be good. I think you should stay here and let me help you feel better.”

“Yeah.” Top settled. “Only cause I feel like shit.”

"And cause I'm an awesome doctor."

Adam coughed; McG wondered if it had started as a laugh.

"Yeah - you're a good doctor."

“Well okay then. Let’s see if we can help you feel less like shit in the morning.”

They couldn’t, but at least Adam let McG bring him meds and keep him hydrated and make sure he was resting instead of staring at paperwork.

}{}{}{}{

Adam trusted McG with his body now, every time. If he couldn’t kick a headache, if he knew the stress was winding him up past peak performance, all he had to do was show up and McG was there, asking after him, pushing him to take care of himself, to feel better. Do what he needed to be good. 

But the rest of the team? Dalton could only encourage them to negotiate their own arrangements with the doc.


	3. Proliferative Phase

The knife wound was messy and deep and might go all the way through his side. Adam couldn’t stop long enough to look; wasn’t sure if he stopped that he’d get to McG and the others before passing out. Fucking blood loss. He tied his tee tightly around his middle and shrugged his jacket back on best he could. He could at least pretend that would help him blend in as he made his way across the small coastal town.

}{}{}{

Adam lay on his uninjured side on the ground in an empty area outside Trabzon. The package was secure, everyone was present and accounted for...even if _some_ team members were oozing out all over the ground. He hated this, but was glad it was at least him and not someone from his team.

He did wish Jaz would stop yelling though. Usually, he didn’t mind it, but she was keeping McG from him - and he need medical attention, damnit.

“Why can’t he have painkillers?” Jaz scoffed and demanded. Top was in enough pain that focusing on how she directed that to their medic instead of to him seemed like a good idea. Something about distraction. “Hey! I’m right here!” he half-fussed, half-yelled, all indignant and fidgeting with bluster, and also with the instinctual need of any wounded animal to slink away.

McG didn’t even look at him as he responded to Jaz. Just placed his broad palm flat against his chest to keep him down. Warm, steady pressure stilled him and Adam stayed down. Might have even let a sigh escape with that last huff of breath.

“He isn’t allergic - but he gets loopy as hell. Runs his mouth. Fucking hates it.” McG inclined his head towards Jaz. Adam thought it was meant to invoke empathy. She knew what it was to protect the boundaries around herself. He was well-acquainted with the misplaced need to keep them up, even with his team.

But right now his boundaries were leaking and this much blood meant field surgery. That and a very long, very painful truck ride across country. Pretty soon whatever shock he was in was going to wear off and he wanted to be as far along in their return trip as possible when that happened. Jaz was clenching her jaw as she tried to find the best shot for the situation. But Adam didn’t have time to wait for her to agree this was the best route. “Just do it - get me sewn up and out of this place.” She turned away and stalked off.

Adam lifted his head, frustrated with his inability to wait for consensus and with his own body’s failure to hold out. But he found the doc’s eyes on his, kind and decisive. Allowing him to feel his affirmation before surgery began, despite the circumstances. Adam couldn’t help locking his eyes onto that feeling, handing things over to the doc and making peace with his body’s temporary fragility.

Amir rushed the back up med supplies over as McG broke eye contact to set up his field surgery kit. This was going to suck - but Adam knew the doc wouldn’t break his promise not to give him drugs unless they agreed it was absolutely necessary. McG looked up one last time, his blunt fingers suspended over his side, needle and thread at the ready. He offered a silent question, tinged with a prescient sadness. Adam shook his head against the final offer and braced himself for the fire of disinfectant. Just before he passed out, he vaguely thought it was nice having someone back up his decisions like this, even if that person also had to shove his hand inside him once in a while.

}{}{}{}{

McG directed exfil. The truck their contact had procured for them was perfect, if not the fastest way across the country. Amir and Preach would split the drive up front. McG would keep watch over Top. And Jaz would set up near the gate, close enough to keep an eye on their six. 

Except as soon as McG saw the layer of grunge lining the truck bed, he shook his head. “Nope. No. We are not laying Top down on that.” Pointing in emphasis. 

“What are you going to do - carry him back?” Amir meant it as a jab to the virility McG self-professed so loudly and so often. Of course his aim failed: McG was invincible when he was doctoring their team. Instead, he rolled with it, slowly nodding his head. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Preach, think you and Amir can get him up into the truck after me?”

Preach was already moving over towards his injured friend. Amir took a moment to catch on before joining him. Jaz lowered the truck gate and McG hopped up, turning back to direct the handling of his patient. Adam began to stir as Preach lifted him under his arms. Amir glanced over at McG before reaching for his feet; the move would further constrain their CO as they carried him the few feet to the truck. 

“Adam? You’re doing fine, surgery went well.” McG nodded to Amir. “We’re moving you up to the truck with me. We’re heading back to base. You hear me, Adam?”

By that point the three were at the truck and Preach transferred Top’s upper half over to McG while he hopped up. The doctor pulled him up in a single move, deadlifting Adam’s dense weight, but not without jarring him into awareness with a groan. “You’re doing good, Adam. Almost done.” He and Preach changed positions again as Amir joined them. McG moved back towards the truck cabin, throwing Top’s bag against the side and sitting up against it. “We’re just gonna get you down here with me, okay? Think you can squat down over here?” McG motioned between his open legs, then put both hands back in the air to help brace him on the way down.

Top yelled the entire way, but managed to maneuver himself down onto the truck bed with Preach’s help. Amir shifted Top’s legs to lay between the medic’s and McG tilted him back into his chest. Top’s head fell back against his shoulder as he hissed out in pain. 

“That’s right, just like we’ve done before, right? Breathe out with the pain, breathe in…” Top felt the doctor take a giant breath and hold it a beat. “Then out with the pain.” Top struggled for a moment to let go off the pain occupying his mind long enough to catch McG’s rhythm. But the doctor kept up a steady thrum of commentary, all in that steady, insistent voice he had when he was directing one of them to take care of themselves. Adam liked that voice. Made it easier for him to do what he was told. “That’s it, you got it. Good, Adam. Keep it steady. Good. Let it out…” A gentle, even whoosh. “...then keep it in.”

Adam kept it in and kept it in and they were rolling across the desert to the steady beat of McG’s breathing under his own.

}{}{}{}{

The first time they hit a particularly rough patch in their gravelly road, Adam jostled awake with a yelp. He knew immediately that he was being held down and that he was in incredible pain. “It’s me, I got you.” McG put his hands up, spread in the air where Adam could see that they weren’t a threat. Without their additional stabilizing, Adam bounced again with the next rock in the road and let out a long whimpery whine. McG’s arms came back, his left anchoring Adam’s shoulder against his own. “We’re heading back to base. Gonna be a long ride - we got another seven hours to go.”

“Eight.” Jaz corrected, betraying her divided attention without a glance back at them. He knew she was frustrated with Top’s insistence on such a painful journey; McG could see it in the set of her jaw and her own stubborn distance. But Adam called the shots unless absolutely - life-threateningly - necessary.

“Eight, then.” He didn’t ask if Adam wanted painkillers. Didn’t cajole or lecture him. Didn’t let Jaz’s ornery correction faze him. He just let Adam sink into a calm update about the situation. “You’re okay - I got your insides back inside and stitched up your side. Should hold until we get you back to base, but you’re going to need surgery there to clear the field and make sure you’re not bleeding internally. But we’re on our way back. The truck was waiting for us at our last rendezvous out of town. Tan, beat up, full tank, extra fuel -” McG pointed over at the tank of gas in the corner opposite them. Adam felt unmoored for a moment, and when they bounced over a dip in the road, it came out as a muffled wail.

McG didn’t let that faze him, either.

“We’re taking some back roads now, and I can’t promise the ride will be any smoother until we’re a few hours out from Incirlik. We’ll stop in another hour so I can check your dressing, see if we need to revisit our plan, okay?” 

_Our_ plan. Adam didn’t know which he wanted more: this unwavering solidarity or for his doctor to tell him what to do with this white hot burning. The steady presence of McG’s hand on his shoulder had him nodding either way. “Yeah. One hour.”

“That’s right. And if you need to tap out before then, you know what to do.”

“Yeah, I know.” Adam choked out. “I know. Got it.”

They lumbered along a short while with Top settling into a steady stream of hisses as his wound was repeatedly aggravated. 

“Jaz - bring us my canteen?”

She barked back, “Can’t you reach it? I’m on watch.”

“And a clean cloth, or gauze from the med kit.”

That caught her attention and she reluctantly stowed her gun. She crawled back to grab the canteen and med kit without making eye contact with either of them. Handing the canteen over first, McG shook his head. “Give Adam a few sips?” He gestured at his arms full of injured CO. Jaz hated seeing him - them - like this. They were all difficult patients, no doubt about it. She could admit she was maybe worst of all. But when it was bad and Top gave it up to McG? It felt voyeuristic to be anywhere near the two of them. Everyone else avoided it no problem. Jaz couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t ever seem to just...ignore them until she created a plausible film of privacy between them.

Meanwhile, Top was hurt and probably dehydrating and McG was doing the best he could to help Top keep it together. Either one of them would do the same for her. 

“Here,” she said as she brought the open canteen carefully up to Top’s mouth. “A sip at a time,” she directed firmly.

Adam was annoyed at the hassle, but Jaz sounded so much like the doc right then. All...commands covered in willpower. He raised his hand to brush over hers where she held the canteen. He bet she thought she could order him into feeling better if he let her. If McG let her. He managed two sips before needing a few shallow breaths to catch up. Pushed his mouth out for a third and fourth. He would have kept going as long as she was offering, but she took it away.

She turned her attention to McG and Adam went back to focusing on the steady breaths surrounding him. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, trying to hand over the gauze. 

“Could you wet that, please?”

And apparently she was getting used to that tone, too, because she had ripped open the sterile packing and splashed it with water before realizing he hadn’t answered her question. 

“Sun’s hot - wanna wipe that across his forehead for us?” Jaz rolled her eyes at the goading sparking in McG’s face. She huffed and handed over the soaked cloth, turning around without looking to see if anyone caught it. 

_No, don’t get mad,_ thought Adam. But he was too stuck in pain management to get it past his lips.

}{}{}{}{

Adam was whining almost steadily by the time they hit the hour-mark and Preach pulled over for reassessment. But he hadn’t tapped out. “Ok, Adam. Talk to me.”

“Fuuuuck.”

“I know, buddy.” McG was checking out the dressing, making sure it wasn’t bleeding too much. “You’re good - wound’s good. What do you want to do.”

Jaz pretended she wasn’t listening, tried to school her face from pleading with him to just take the damn drugs.

“I can’t - I can’t make it. Hurts like a motherfucker.”

“Well,” drawled the doc. “I _did_ just do field surgery on your side. I imagine it does hurt a bit.”

Jokes aside, he waited Adam out, adjusting his right arm across his upper chest and bringing his mouth close to his ear. “We do this your way. Every time.”

“Gimme em. Give me the percs.” Adam’s jaw clenched. McG nodded to Preach, who had joined them. Preach already had the packet in hand and he took the canteen as he crouched over to where McG was holding Top. 

“You got it. Don’t you worry - you’re gonna feel better soon.”

The sound Adam let out was self-defeat, pure and simple. But it was better than the yelping and whimpering of the past hour and a half, thought Jaz.

}{}{}{}{

They hit a bump and, unlike before when his body leaned into the doctor’s to brace against the pain of impact, Top’s torso followed the motion forward. McG’s left hand pressed over his heart, pressing him back against the medic. It made Adam feel grounded. He still couldn’t pin down a single thought, but that didn’t seem to matter. The doc had him. Goddamn. He was had.

He stilled and after a moment, McG started to move his arm back down.

“No, that’s - keep, stay...Tha’s good.” 

McG was quiet, just loud enough for Top to hear his voice somewhere near his ear. “I got you. S’ok. You’re right here.”

Across the truck bed, Jaz watched the exchange. She caught Top looking at _her_ looking and moved her gaze over his shoulder, blank sniper focus in place. Adam wanted her to look at him, see that he was right there, like McG promised he was. Her eyes, big and soft for once, so close.

“No - here.”

“Yeah, buddy. I know. You’re here. The drugs do a number on you, that’s still true, but you’re not going anywhere. We got you.” 

“Jaz. Jaz doesn’t - she’s -” Adam raised his right hand in a clumsy gesture, swinging widely towards the end of the truck bed. “She’s - thinks I’m. Fuck.” He was back to feeling sad and floaty, even with the doc steadying him.

McG guided Adam’s right arm back across belly, his left hand still held in place against his chest by Top. He leaned towards his ear again. “Adam? Not sure you wanna talk about Jaz right now.” McG wasn’t oblivious; he had an inkling where this could go if Adam weren’t keeping his boundaries up tight.

“Hmmm, yeah. Yeah, let’s talk - cuz Jaz - she’s just - she could be -”

But McG slid his right hand up his arm and soothed it through his hair. “I’m going to need you to stop fighting the drugs, okay? Rest your eyes.”

Adam felt his eyes close without his permission. Doc gave him orders. He protested a bit with a whimper and tried to shift, fighting to stay awake, but McG tightened his hold slightly and rubbed his right hand up and down his bicep. “Shhh, you don’t need to be on point right now. I got this. You trust me?”

Every muscle seemed relieved and eased at the question. ‘Course he did. Adam practically melted back into the medic’s larger frame.

“That’s right - you do. So get some rest. Doctor’s orders.” McG looked up and met Jaz’s gaze, immediately assessing it as he would to diagnose any potential for harm to those in his care. She looked...cautious. Curious. Maybe a bit envious. But he couldn’t say any of that to her without risking a serious beating - and some serious hurt feelings, too, he bet. 

“Jaz’ll stay, too? Cause she’s - God. ‘m I talking?” He sounded vaguely horrified, even through his drugged out lack of self-awareness.

McG met Jaz’s eyes, asking her without words to be indulgent for Top’s sake. To her credit, her eyes were more sympathetic than mischievous when she agreed, “Yeah, Top. Jaz’ll stay, too.”

He just “hmmm”ed before dropping off to sleep.

}{}{}{}{

They were well past the halfway mark when Adam woke next. “Where?” he mumbled. 

McG barely shifted behind him. “About two hours out, maybe three.”

Making sense of that response forced Adam awake enough to take stock of his body’s various sensations. “Gotta pee. Can we stop?”

McG nodded towards the cabin and Jaz crawled up the length of the truck bed to bang twice against the passenger side. They slid to a stop and a door opened and slammed shut. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, Preach - just need to make a pit stop. Little help?”

They managed to get Adam on his feet between the two of them while Jaz made her way towards the front of the truck. He made it through the whole ordeal without much more than a few yelps, but McG could tell the meds were wearing off. For one thing, Top didn’t comment on any of their combined efforts to get him down off the truck and relieved. The drugs would have loosened his tongue on their creative, if efficient, maneuvering. When he did speak, there was altogether too much coherence. Good for keeping secrets; not so good for withstanding bumpy backroads. 

As they headed back to the truck, McG stood aside. “So what do you think, Adam? Time for your next dose?”

He was expecting Top to protest, he really was - especially if there was any residual relief from the last set of percs. Instead, Adam looked at him with wide eyes from where Preach was holding him up and nodded slowly. 

“Ok. New plan then, I think.” He turned sideways to direct his orders. “Jaz - can you go sit where I was with Top?”

She froze in place - couldn’t even look at either her CO or the doctor issuing orders. “Uh, me?”

“Yeah. 

“Jaz…” Top was pleading without the words. She couldn’t say no, even without an order. Maybe especially without one. “I just want to get on the road again, ok? Knock out on the percs. Let Medical fix up this guy’s field work.”

“Hey now! This guy’s field work kept you together.”

Jaz watched as Dalton dipped his chin in that way he did when concession was the only recourse. She moved up onto the truck bed, crawling back towards the cabin where she could lean back against the pack. “This good?”

McG ordered, “Yes. Disinfect your hands, though.” When she rolled her eyes, he continued. “We’re trying to keep the filth from that truck off him. You just climbed back on your hands and knees…”

Adam huffed in and out, pulling McG’s attention back to him. “Alright, let’s get you up here.”

They repeated the transfer from their exfil site, Adam letting his best friend and the doc push and pull him into place. When they made it over to Jaz, he looked down at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher - something between sadness, inevitability and steely determination. 

Lowering down was just as painful as the first time and Jaz’s hands fluttered uncharacteristically as she tried to figure out how to help. McG just grabbed one and wrapped it around his patient once he was settled, wrapping her fingers into the junction of his shoulder and his throat. 

“Hang on while we get you set.” Preach handed over the percs and water. McG took the proffered canteen and opened it before holding it out to Adam. “I can drink my own damn water.” 

“Fancy that. Grumbly Top.”

Jaz chuckled, glad McG was shifting back and forth between the possessiveness that seemed to work with Top and the banter he brought to treating Jaz. It helped steady her. _Bastard knew it, too._ McG took the canteen when Adam was done and scooted back towards the closed gate. He didn’t take up Jaz’s rifle, but seemed content to keep his gaze out the back. 

Jaz waited a few minutes, expecting further instructions. The doc had singled her out, after all - what was she supposed to be doing with that? But then they hit another rough patch and Top’s heavy frame pitched against her. 

“Shit - sorry. Let me…” She squeezed her legs in close and adjusted her hold to keep him from rocking side to side quite so much.

Top jolted with the truck, tried to keep quiet. “S’ok. Percs’ll hit me in ten. I’ll be out of your hair then.”

It wasn’t ok. Jaz had been through worse - had been the one carefully not bleeding out during transit back to base - but none of it had prepared her for an arm full of vulnerable Adam Dalton trying to convince her not to worry about him. Of course she was worried: he was writhing in pain and going to pull his stitches and their dumbass doctor had put her in charge of providing him with comfort. Her!

She remembered how McG had run his hand through Top’s hair. She didn’t have nearly the same relationship with him as McG, though. The two them were...intimate. Jaz might have softened considerably, maybe irreparably, towards her CO, but intimate they were not. Not really. Not like he was with the doc. 

But then Top ground out, “Talk to me?” in that needy tone he used with McG and she found herself rewriting her understanding of trust and intimacy and power.

“Shhhh, it’s okay, Top. I got you - just like McG. We got, what, eight minutes to go? You got this.”

His breathing was evening out; Jaz didn’t know if it was the pain meds or her chatter, so she kept it up.

“McG tells you that all the time, right? That you got this? It’s true. You’re strong - and so. friggin. stubborn. You might be the only person I’ve met who can outlast me.”

Tucked within her arms, Top gave a weak chuckle. She continued, “I mean, I probably wouldn’t admit that if you weren’t stuck here like this, but it’s true. Maybe one day we’ll get to really face off, see who can outlast the other?”

McG tried not to picture any alternative interpretations of such a contest, especially not with his friend in so much pain. He just couldn’t help it though - they’d be hot together. So much untapped chemistry with some strong potential for more.

“That’d be fun. Real challenge.”

“Is that right? Not like all those times you’ve insisted you’re always on top?”

Adam moaned a bit, feeling himself start to flutter with the pain reliever hitting his brain. “Listen - I’m gonna get chatty.”

Jaz laughed out loud. So she’d seen. “Yeah. I know.”

“It’s - don’t - you can tell me to shut up.”

“I don’t think I can _tell_ you anything.”

“Yeah - can. Bossy.”

“Am not!” Even McG huffed at that.

“No, it’s - you are. Really are. Like it.”

And with that, Jaz knew he was under. No way Top admitted to liking it when she challenged him, even if she’d always suspected he let her get away with more than he maybe should.

“Remember when you said I could tell you to shut it?”

Top rolled his head, trying to look at her. She pulled his head back, straightening him out again. “Mmm. Can - yeah. Gotta make me. Cause - you’re _Jaaaaz._ ”

Jaz took an unsteady breath. _This_ was what she was worried about, even as she knew it was coming. This heavy intimacy when Top gave himself over. She’d seen it with McG and knew the drugs would force him into it with her.

She didn’t know what to do with it.

“Please, Jaz.”

“Top?”

“‘m Adam.” He turned his head again. She settled for cradling it against her rather than fighting him on it. Maybe it’d help keep him from jostling his side.

“Adam,” she conceded. “You’re going to stop now. Just go to sleep, okay?”

It seemed to be permission enough because he was finally out again.

McG waited a few minutes to confirm Adam had really succumbed to the meds before turning a pointed look towards his teammate. 

“See?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jaz replied. “I’m bossy as hell.”


	4. Inflammatory Phase II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe this was an opportunity; he had been thinking a lot lately about how to encourage Top to invite Jaz to let this thing between them continue to grow. 
> 
> Healing complex wounds is never as linear as the textbook would suggest. Especially not with these two.

McG felt like he had a handle on each of his teammates’ personas as patients. At least, when they were one on one, he did. Which wasn’t much of an issue - it was rare for more than one person to need him at the same time. When he was forced to prioritize multiple demands on his medical training, the only person who seemed to struggle was Top. His CO could be both needy and, well, in charge. On top of that, he tended to dig in when things went sideways.

And this is where they currently were. 

“Give it to me again, Sargeant. What happened immediately after Amir left to find the package?” They had taken heavy fire resulting in a bullet graze along Jaz’s thigh. Team injuries demanded thorough review, even while they strained everyone’s patience. Top was triple checking every detail. The adrenaline rush had faded, but the transition home to safety and rest was stalled out in debrief. 

McG was frustrated - and not just because he was with Jaz when she was shot and he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to prevent it. In his expert opinion, making sure Jaz figured out how to work through her own frustration without further injuring herself took precedence over repeating the same information over and over for Top. He knew what was happening was partly Top’s duty, but it was also partly a bid toward regaining control. A coping mechanism. McG was all for them; it really did kill him to leave Adam to his own post-action swirl of adrenaline-fueled anger and anxiety for a bit. McG knew and accepted that he was uniquely positioned to help bust Top out of his perseverating bid to understand why he hadn’t been able to keep the team from harm. Keep _Jaz_ from harm. 

“We’ve already been over this, and in excruciating detail. Come on, Top. Just lemme go see her for a bit - you know how Jaz gets when I let her skip Medical. She’s gonna tear something and wind up with an infection.”

Top was still giving him the kind of patient stare that told McG he was yet to be convinced. “What happened when Amir left?”

“I went out of my mind waiting for things to be over.”

“McGuire!”

“Adam, remember how you felt when you thought a few stitches was the end of it? Only when absolutely necessary, when you wouldn’t let me even make that call?” The doc pointed back toward the bunks in emphasis. “That’s where Jaz is! And do you know what her call is going to be after getting shot at and yelled at and forced down?”

The kicker was, Top did know. As feisty as Jaz was, he knew how hard she pushed herself, especially after mistakes were made. He recognized that tendency. Sometimes it was that very trait that kept her in the game at this fierce, elite level. Other times, though...Top had been keeping an eye on the balance between highly motivated elite forces training and self-destructive tendencies just to make sure Jaz was fit and fine. The two of them had grown closer as he worked out the kind of oblique glances off her self-imposed control that were needed to win her affection. This heady combination of teasing and competition and raw honesty when he needed her to stay present and connected. 

And now he was abandoning all of that hard-won knowledge for his own damn neuroticism. It was a selfish act born out of a lack of trust in his team to help sooth his hurt. He knew better than that.

The tension didn’t ease from his shoulders or his quads or his jaw, but he did give a nod as he stood up. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”

}{}{}{}{}{

The two guys headed to Jaz’s door. McG hadn’t been expecting Top to come with him to check on Jaz. Maybe this was an opportunity; he had been thinking a lot lately about how to encourage Top to invite Jaz to let this thing between them continue to grow. He also happened to know that Preach would approve of any efforts to put these two together with their real needs first, bureaucratic career needs second.

Maybe he should get a pool going.

When McG knocked, Jaz hailed him in rather than opening the door. “I’m indisposed; come on in.” She joked, assuming it was just the medic. He saw the flash of surprise and slight awkwardness cross her face when she released their CO was with him. She gesticulated at her bunk where she sat with her damaged right leg up. “Just trying to follow doctor’s orders.” 

McG gave her head an exaggerated pat. “Good girl, Jazzy.” She batted his hands away and asked, “You done with debriefs? Think I could move this to the couch?”

“Getting stir crazy already?” McG gathered her pillows and blanket with plans to build her as comfortable a nest as possible. Phase I of getting Jaz to stay still long enough to heal: Indulge her repressed desire for pampering. He made a mental note to find out if the market close to their end of Adana had any new emery boards in stock. 

Hands full, McG was unable to help Jaz out to the common room. Aw, shucks. Top rushed forward. “Here, let me help you.” He held out an arm for her.

“If you try to pick me up, I will hurt you.” She said it while winding her arm behind his back and up over his shoulder for support, though. McG didn’t think he’d get punched for smirking a bit in their direction. The doctor moved ahead of them to get the couch ready for their sniper. As Top helped her maneuver her way down, McG slipped into his doctor persona.

“How are you doing, Jaz?” He helped lift her injured leg onto beat up leather and pushed a pillow under her knees. 

“The damn aassholes knew they had the drop on us. I was so focused on the target across the street from us. I can’t recall where they were before they swung around to fire on us…”

The doc interrupted her then. “I didn’t ask you what happened - I was there. I trust Top will figure out whatever I didn’t catch the first time.” He saw Top stand a bit straighter just outside their periphery. “I asked you how you were doing, Jaz.”

Sometimes that was tough for her to really get, he knew. Jaz still retreated to a defensive stance of thinking she was being pressed to earn her keep with the team. 

“I’m fine, McG!” He raised his eyebrows and made a continuing motion with his hands. The goal with Jazzycat was to keep her talking. “You said the leg is patched up, no major muscle damage. A week off my feet, then we reevaluate. I promised a week, you promised to get Amir to make those pastries with the honeyed nuts.”

“Balaclava.”

“That’s not what they’re called. But you keep your end of the deal and it doesn’t matter. We’re good.”

McG sighed and smoothed his large palm down her shoulder. He thought he caught Adam following the motion. “Still not what I asked. Can we get you anything?”

The medic was expecting her to ask for whatever novel was on the floor near her bed; the tv remote; another pillow. Maybe even water and her next round of meds. Her face wavered a bit and she turned those dark eyes of hers up to their CO. “Some answers might be nice. I know we don’t always get them, but I swear we should have seen these guys.”

Shit if that wasn’t going to trigger Top all over again. McG stood up and turned his focus on him just as Adam wiped his beard and settled his hands on his hips. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You need to rest, Top - and Jaz doesn’t need -”

“I know what Jaz needs! I definitely know what I need.”

The medic threaded his voice with firm resolve and kindness in equal parts. “Reliving the details? Going over and over and over them? Not helping either of you, not until after you can get some fresh perspective.”

Adam looked thunderous. “Sergeant McGuire -”

“Top.” Jaz was looking up at them with the sort of hesitancy she rarely wore. Adam turned around and stalked out of the hut. 

}{}{}{}{}{

Never one to back down from tough responsibilities, McG gave Adam a few minutes and then followed him outside. The scene that greeted him could have been worse: Adam was pacing on the other side of the picnic table. Seeing McG had joined him, he stalked over to the taller man.

“You do not get to call me out like that, not in front of the team, not ever. Are we clear?”

McG shook his head, negating Top’s understanding of the situation more than his own willingness to follow his command. “Nah, Top. She’s hurting, and you know what that’s like for her. She’s still processing what happened and it’s my job to clear the field of any remaining debris.”

Top literally took a step back, disbelief coloring over the previous outrage on his face. “‘Clear the field’ - of me?”

“No! Not of you.” McG bopped his head a bit in contemplation of some careful words. This here was delicate. “Of focusing on the wrong things. The details that caused her harm, that make her want to prove to everyone that she’s fully capable of kicking our asses. That debris gets kicked up and she’s stuck going over and over what she did wrong, how she endangered her guys.” McG gestured between the two of them and back inside where Preach and Amir were hopefully still sleeping through the ruckus.

Top relaxed a bit into consideration. “She _does_ kick our asses more whenever something goes wrong on mission.”

“She does. But she can’t when she has a bullet track winding up her thigh. Amping her up doesn’t help her quell that berserker instinct.” He gave Adam a pointed look, which wasn’t lost on him. Adam tucked his chin and took a deep breath. McG continued. “Our job right now? We gotta figure out how to help her find an alternative that keeps her leg safe.”

Top put his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the side of the quonset hut. “How do you suggest you do that?”

“Well, first off, it’s ‘how are we going to do that.’ You wanna support her, right?”

Adam shuffled his foot into the dirt and rolled his head. “Of course, I do.”

“Maybe we should start with reviewing what you might want someone to do for you in this situation.”

Top looked at McG like he was an idiot. “Come on.”

McG was all wide eyes and innocence. “What?” And then the bastard waited him out.

After a few minutes first resisting, then lost in his own head, Adam shuffled and sighed and submitted to the thought experiment. “You make sure I stay grounded. Remind me I’m here now, not still back wherever.” 

“How do I do that?”

Adam gestured out into the night air like he didn’t know. “Frequent - pats on the shoulder and - you, just - breathe with me.”

“Cuddles, check.” Adam stopped mid-thought, hands back on his hips and a “really?” look shot at McG. “Ok, fine: positive bonding touches, as proven to increase oxytocin and fight infection.”

To signal the revision was an acceptable apology, Top rolled his eyes and continued. “You talk to me about what we’re going to do before anything happens. And you wait. Don’t do anything til I say.”

“Yeah, that’s important. Jazzy’ll let you feel it if you surprise her.” He could see Adam making a mental note. As if he didn’t already know that, thought McG, slightly exasperated. _These two._ “What else?”

“I don’t know, doc. It’s always right in the middle of things. It’s not like I’m paying real close attention.”

“I’ve noticed that, too. You’re better at accepting intervention in the midst of the emergency than any sort of care afterwards.”

Adam looked straight ahead and held his breath down deep, then blew it out to a count of ten. 

“That’s good. That breathing thing you do? You could show that to Jazzy. We haven’t tried breathing exercises, but I bet she relies on her breathing control when she’s sniping.”

Adam thought about Jaz when she was focused and still, from her dark, sure eyes to the core of her. How maybe he could help bring that center back to the Jaz sitting inside. “That’s it,” McG hyped him up. “Time to go play hero!”

}{}{}{}{}{

This was penance. Adam wasn’t even going to challenge that with McG. (Mostly because if he heard it admitted out loud, he might be forced to reconsider whether he really had this fine line business down between his CO responsibilities and his currently injured sniper). 

Jaz called out to him as he moved back into the common room, watching McG retreat back to his bunk. “Everything okay?”

“Fine. How are _you_ doing? You never got the chance to answer.”

Jaz pretended to consider a moment. “My leg hurts. It’s gonna be a long week.”

Top moved closer. “Heard you already started some negotiations to deal with that. Commandeering the couch, baklava - what else can we do?” Half-teasing, all generous, just like he’d seen the doc use with her.

“I didn’t commandeer it! The couch was on offer! And only half of it, anyway.” She rubbed along the back and brought up her left knee, inviting him to join her. Adam sat down and gingerly picked up the foot of her injured leg to slide under. He left his hands on her feet after she snuggled back into place.

“You don’t need to get back to writing up the debriefing? Call in our questions to DC?” 

Instead of answering right away, Adam squeezed her right foot in his hand, then stroked his thumb over the pressure point outside her big toe. He wrapped his other hand around her ankle, keeping his motions from jarring her leg. “Nope. We are not talking shop.” So clever, Jaz thought, distributing that block across all the questions. Wrapping up his good behavior with a sly answer to Jaz’s distracting question.

“Mmmm, that’s fair.” His thumb pressed down over the arch of her foot and down to her heel. “We’re toooootally adding this to the Keep Jaz Happy List.”

“Wait - are you on pain meds!?”

She nodded quite a bit, large sloppy movements of her head. “Yeah. I got shot in the leg.” Adam stood up and was halfway to the kitchen before Jaz’s medicated reflexes caught up. 

“Noooo…! Where are you going?” He stopped and stood sideways at her. This wasn’t a good idea, not when she was hopped up and he was still feeling the aftereffects of a mission barely won himself. She might not be quite as loopy as he was, sure; but she deserved to make her own carefully informed decisions about what she did and did not want her CO to do to comfort her, though. 

“It’s okay, Top.” She made grabby hands and he turned to face her. Encouraged, her motioning became grander. Top stood his ground as she continued, “Doc said you were gonna be taking first watch. Come keep me entertained. So I took the pills. I don’t need to worry - you’re Top! And you’re gonna be ‘on your best behavior.’” The only thing that could have made this worse is if she had actually used air quotes. He heard them, though, and mentally cursed a bit. 

“How do you wanna do this?”

Jaz wiggled her toes and nodded at the end of the couch where Adam had been sitting earlier. “That thing you were doing with my toes felt pretty good.” She closed her eyes as he returned. “We should ask Amir to grab some emery boards on his grocery run.”

McG was an evil genius.

}{}{}{}{}{

Late the next morning, McG knocked on Jaz’s door and waited. When she didn’t answer within a reasonable time, given the current limitations to her mobility, he knocked again, steady and declarative. “Jaz? Open up. Time for the check-in you promised me.”

The door opened and a very sleepy, very tousled Jaz looked out. Making sense of the world this close to dreamland was always a bit fuzzy. Sleeping after yesterday’s firefight and the ensuing aftercare drama was a good sign. McG pushed into the room and closed the door behind him as Jaz made her way back to her bed. 

She watched him the entire time he assessed her stitches and rewrapped her leg. He knew she’d kill him if she ever found out, but in his head he called it her Guarded Disney Princess Look. More vulnerability and cautious optimism than she ever showed outside of medical care. Sometimes, he wondered if this was how she would look at Top, except wrapped up in heat and a bit more need. 

“How’d things go last night?”

“You sent Top in to distract me without telling him I knew, didn’t you,” she accused.

“I think you mean, ‘take care of you.’ And yes, yes I did.” He finished repacking his med kit and looked up at her expectantly. If she wanted to have this conversation, if she really was ready, then she could do more than vaguely initiate it.

“We prepped before I sent him in, don’t worry.” The undercurrent of teasing he used to keep Jaz steady was still there; McG was taking a more earnest approach than usual, though. There was a seriousness he needed to convey: she could screw around with her own self if she must, but he’d be damned if he was going to hand over his patient and friend to anyone who wasn’t prepared for this. 

“It was weird. I mean, good. I just - I don’t know. I don’t think Top was very comfortable with the whole thing.”

McG settled his hands on his knees. “What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, Jaz scooted over on the bed until McG had to get up to get out of her way. She let him steady her with a strong arm out like a bar as she stood and then hobbled her way into the bathroom. Maybe she had finally woken up enough to need to empty her bladder, but really McG thought she just wanted to collect her thoughts where he couldn’t follow. 

When she came back out, she stood just inside the room facing McG with her arms wrapped around her. “With me. With - it wasn’t, you know, the same!”

“No one’s as good as me, Jazzycat.”

She huffed and replied, “That’s what I mean. It wasn’t like - with the two of you…”

That was not what McG thought had been holding Jaz back. He could work with it.

Jaz grumbled and unwound her arms from her middle. “I can’t look away! I know I should - the two of you have your… _thing_. And I know it’s good for Top, I just…”

“So don’t.” McG shrugged. 

“Uh, what?”

“You don’t need to look away, Jaz. Pretty sure Adam wouldn’t mind if you joined the team, actually.”

Jaz screwed up her face with a near burst of laughter. “Uh, McG? I don’t think…”

He deadpanned, “Not _that_ kind of ‘team activity,’ Jaz. Although…”

Jaz playfully punched his arm, which he pretended hurt. Then he carefully gathered her into a big bear hug, which she pretended to evade, unsuccessfully. While he was still squeezing her, he faux whispered, “We can talk about that later, if you change your mind about Adam, though.”

Jaz smacked him and he released her. Elijah used to tease her relentlessly about her growing crush, but no one else had ever spoken about it aloud. It was sorta nice to have it out in the semi-open with someone again. And really, if anyone could be trusted to make her deal with it and keep it secret, it was probably the good doc.

“We all watch out for each other, have each others’ backs. I just have Top’s back when he’s struggling to accept that. You know how stubborn he can be.”

“Mmm.”

“He liiiikes that you’re bossy, remember?” The teasing lilt in his voice was back. It was pretty damn effective at keeping Jaz from freaking out too much about the conversation. She leaned up against his side and wouldn’t look at him as she confessed, “That was so awful. He was - in pain and bleeding on me and I was -” she sighed. Might as well confess in full. “Trying not to like it.”

“See? You’d fit right in on this team.”

She chuckled and groaned a bit. 

“Jazzycat. He trusts you. So much. You want him to?”

“That’s not the point.” She snuggled deeper down into his side. There were times when Jaz needed cajoling and jokes or negotiating and deals to get her to face her current situation. This seemed like one of the times she just needed enough space to puzzle out how her emotions and her logic fit together. McG was quiet, letting her work.

“It’s not that I don’t want him to trust me - he can! I want him to. You think I should? You know, want him to want me to help him?”

“Why shouldn’t you? I mean, it’s not like either of you have a choice, right?”

Fuck if that weren’t true. They were stuck together; might as well figure out how to make it work. It’s not like this life gave them many chances at finding something like they had. 

Jaz sat up and moved back toward her bed. When she was settled, she stilled and got a clear look at McG’s earnest eyes. “ _That’s_ a good enough reason to put me through this? 

McG laughed out loud, the kind of deep belly laugh that always rallied the team. “Damn straight!”


	5. Maturation Phase I

Top was a competitive son of a bitch. He was competent, relentless, observant to a fault. He saw how the rest of the team was looking after Jaz. McG was always around to rib on her, teasing out that feistiness he loved to see. Amir had worked out some kind of trade using his fancy gourmet cooking skills to get Jaz to give him shooting lessons; they all benefited from that, sure, but it was Jaz who lit up lording his improvement over McG. Hell, Preach even offered to go shopping with her under the guise of finding trinkets for his girls. 

He’d have to up his game.

}{}{}{}{}{}{

He started joining her on her early morning runs again. After Elijah had died, he had gone with her daily just so she knew he wasn’t going to let her run away from the team. Now he picked that back up. Jaz didn’t question having him at her side every morning. “You’re just a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?” she tossed over her shoulder their third run that week. He merely chased after her until he could keep up.

It wasn’t like they weren’t already close - he knew Jaz looked to him first when it really counted. When he was ill or injured, Jaz was just as likely to be there as McG these days. She even sought him out last time she was laid up, throwing a small bottle of lotion at him from her nest on the couch where she was waiting out her concussion. Top had tried to ignore the way Jaz attempted to hold back the pleasure from her voice as they chatted while he rubbed her feet. He wanted her to share that with him, let him know when he made her feel good. She didn’t seem to have any problem praising Amir’s aim and God, she was always teasing McG.

Now that their friendly team medic had convinced him that attending to Jaz wasn’t selfish, wasn’t duty, was something in between, Adam was damned if anyone else was going to outwin her affections. 

}{}{}{}{}{}{

Top crowed inside the first time Jaz sought him out on transport back to base and laid her head on his shoulder. She wasn’t exactly cuddled up to him, but Jaz was stingy with touch. Theirs was a language unspoken and usually transmitted across distance: moving together in sync, plans packed into shared glances. Never skin-to-skin unless they were training or someone was in pain. As the plane started to descend, Top thought about how McG made him talk, wanted everything out loud and explicit when they had to work together. How hard the doc must work to keep himself from doing anything without Top’s permission, but also how clear that permission must be. Maybe it would be good to have more of that with Jaz. Figure out what, exactly, he was allowed to do.

When she stirred against his shoulder and looked up, that sleepy lost look on her face, all the questions he couldn’t ask her sat hushed on Top’s tongue. Instead, he tucked her messy hair up into a knot and pinned it back at the top of her neck. “Hey there, Jazzy. You ready to rejoin the rest of us?” She nodded in the affirmative, attempting to follow his lead, yet the slight confusion of lingering sleep still on her face. “It’s okay if you’re not. I got you.” She nodded again and, when they deplaned, he kept his hand on the small of her back. He couldn’t believe she didn’t bat it away, glare at him for his patronizing hold on her in front of the other guys. Instead, her gait kept her close to his side and all the questions on Adam’s tongue loosened just a bit. He wondered if she wanted to listen, if that’s what caring was like when their bodies weren’t under immediate threat.

}{}{}{}{}{}{

That night, she sat in the corner of the couch reading one of those books written for teenagers while he wrote up the after action report. She had been reading this series for a while now, protesting every time McG threatened one spoiler or another. Top had been waiting for her to finish so he could listen to her tell him about it, try to get her to tease him into reading it, spend some time talking through the moral quandaries that made her love these types of books. 

She growled at page in front of her and turned a page before slapping it down on the section of the couch in front of her. “What’s up, Jazzy? Not the ending you were expecting?”

“It’s just - the story is about this badass woman who keeps having to live according to everyone else’s rules. She saves her family, saves the whole fucking society. Wins a war she didn’t even want. She finally gets a choice and she’s - she just - fucking resigns herself to a small life with the only person she thinks can love her.” Jaz threw the book onto the other end of the couch. 

Top chewed on his words a bit before offering, “Doesn’t sound like what she deserved.”

Jaz fiddled a bit with the pillow in her lap. She was still looking down at it when she replied. “Yeah, well. You know what McG says about wanting and deserving.” When Jaz looked up at him, all Adam could see was storminess and sadness. Was he the only one Jaz thought could love her? Jaz would die before she would let herself life any kind of small life. He stood to move his chair facing away from her and sat back down, front pressed up against the back of it. The physical barrier kept him from leaning too far towards her.

“You mean how we have to ask for what we want, not what we deserve? ‘That’s so important, Jazzy’,” he imitated McG to soften his message.

She huffed, rolled her head; a deflection, then. “She could have chosen to be alone - she could have still been happy.”

“You think maybe she didn’t really have a choice? She still stuck in all those rules you mentioned, maybe?”

Jaz looked at Top, saw the introspection in the angle of his head and in his shoulders curving around the back of the chair. She stood and stomped past him. “It’s just a stupid book. Story’s not worth it.”

}{}{}{}{}{}{

Top started sharing other stories with her, then. Some were his favorites: the vain queen, heroes and monsters. Allegories for making sense of the shit they saw in this world. Some were real, stories from his own past less heavily guarded now. He was trying to frame some sort of connection with Jaz outside the confines of command and the necessities of war; he could not afford to be tightfisted with the bits of his self tucked close to his heart. 

If she was going to have a choice, choose what she wanted, he’d have to make sure she knew what was on offer.

}{}{}{}{}{}{

It wasn’t until he suffered a very minor injury and Jaz came to his unnecessary rescue that he had the opportunity to see that she _had_ been listening. 

Top leaned back from Jaz’s hand at his forehead. “Don’t fuss!” he wheedled. 

“You let McG fuss…” It was out before she considered the weight of implications. This wasn’t Top blissed out and unaware or storytime around the firepit. This was her CO pulling back from her touch. Top’s expression widened, momentarily freezing before clearing his throat and glancing down. Open, then hiding. Shit. Jaz scrambled for a way to take it back.

“Yeah - I do.” He beat her to it, surprising her before she could change tactics. 

Maybe not so much with the hiding. 

Jaz wrapped her hand onto his shoulder. She wasn’t normally very tactile with the guys - she’d had physical distancing ingrained in her long before joining the very male ranks of the military. Adam, though, seemed to seek out touch when he was feeling particularly vulnerable. McG swore Adam was on board with Jaz’s recent increase in attention; she was still cautiously testing the waters. She thought perhaps she wanted too much. She thought Top was being kind - a better man than his father - when he sought her out after missions and during those awful times the boredom in between set in. McG made faces at her when she suggested anything of the sort, but she still believed it.

Jaz ran her hand down Adam's bicep slowly before returning to his shoulder. “Care to tell me why _he_ gets to fuss?” It was easier to give him attention and relief than to accept that certain possible intentions might be anywhere near his ambitions. 

“He’s a good doctor.” 

Jaz turned her back on the table where he sat with paperwork spread out and leaned back to perch on it at Top’s side. “You told me that before, you know.”

Top looked up at her at that, damaged forehead quirked painfully in question. “When was that? After Trabzon?” 

Jaz couldn’t help the mirth from washing over her face. A high Adam Dalton was fucking adorable. “Ahh, nooo. No - this was not long after I joined the team.”

Top’s face suggested he didn’t remember.

“You told me I could trust him. That you knew I didn’t, but that he was good.” 

“Ah, well. He is. Good.”

“So are you, Top.” She reached out again towards the cut across his hairline. 

Top stayed still under her fingers, held his breath for a beat. She ran her thumb just inside his hairline, avoiding the damage. Top succumbed to her fingers; she could see it happening right in front of her. “Adam,” he gently corrected, voice gone a bit rough.

She still felt strange using his first name. It was such a clear sign that they were putting aside his rank and his position over her. Trying to step out onto a level place. Jaz smoothed her hand down, fussed at his cheek and then scratched her fingers into his beard. “Ok. Adam. You’ve been good, with me, I mean. I know I’m not always easy.”

Adam kept his eyes on her, barely breathing. He didn’t stop her, but he was watching her carefully, letting her make the next move. She thought about what McG had said, about how Top struggled to let himself take comfort in others, even as he supplied it so readily these days. And she thought about what she wanted, not just what she deserved. McG told her a lot about that, too.

“Hmmm,” she murmured. “I’m sorry your forehead’s busted. You should let me, just a bit.”

Adam closed his eyes, nodding. She perched adjacent to him, her fingers moving slowly and surely across his face and jaw and neck and head. They stayed like that for a few moments. 

“McG says you might like this, like me - on the team. That you deserve more than just him.”

When he finally opened his eyes, Jaz saw the sort of softness that meant his body, if not his actual life, had been given over to her hands. “I’m not supposed to let you in.”

Jaz took back her hand slowly as she thought about how to respond. How could she keep this going without changing things? Without making the kinds of demands McG never did? Could she really keep it about Adam and what he needed and wanted and deserved? Was that really fair to her? And could she let that matter?

She started with an admission. “I know.”

“There’s an excuse - I mean, McG is supposed to keep me healthy, keep me going.” He swallowed. “It’s allowed. I can...let him fuss.”

“Adam, I know. I didn’t mean we had to…” she flushed. "...do anything not allowed..." This indefinite non-mentioning was the closest they had ever gotten to discussing the attraction between them. The pull that kept them so wildly in sync out in the field and pushed them around each other back on base. She wanted to indulge in it, thought maybe he did, too. McG certainly thought so. But if he wouldn’t even let her in this far, she wasn’t sure he was ready to think about anything beyond the simplest of comforts; fairytales and first aid. “We don’t have to…” she let the possibilities that they would not indulge remain imagined.

He sighed under his breath, taking her back to when he was sprawled between her legs in the back of a truck headed across Turkey, high out his mind and demanding so much careful attention. If this - anything - was going to happen, she was going to have to be the brave one. Her hand went back to his head, hooking around the back of his neck. “Help me out here. What do you want, Adam?”

“Want you” Her fingers dug in. “- watching out for me, keeping me safe. Wanna be good.” 

And when he looked at her, she understood the weight of those words for him. 

“You are, Adam. You’re so good.” He licked his lips. “So good for me. To me. You won’t let that change. Will you?”

“No.”

“No. You won’t. You’re a good CO, Top. God, you couldn’t not be good if you tried.”

His eyes darkened at that, but he didn’t disagree. She slid up from the table and sat down across his lap. Adam’s arms circled her waist automatically. “You know what I think we should do?”

Shoot. Crafty Jaz was always a bit scary. “What…?”

“We’ve diagnosed the issue, right? We both want -” she gestured somewhat vaguely between them with her left hand. Adam nodded, relieved. She was confirming that some kind of feelings were mutual, that she was beginning to understand the unnameable vagaries of this kind of intimacy with him. Maybe she was beginning to grasp just how fucking hard this was for him. He was still skeptical about where this was going and whether he’d be able to follow her. God did he feel _seen,_ though. Like when she listened almost greedily to his stories, except this time the story was _them_ and it was unfolding _right now._

“We also need to be good.” She nodded curtly.

“Yeah.” Adam sighed. 

“So let’s just - continue.” Jaz shrugged. “To be good, for DC - and for each other, too. I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing already, isn’t it?”

Adam looked at her with that unnerving stare he had when he was piecing together the evidence you didn’t even know you were betraying. He must have come to some kind of conclusion because his arms tightened around her, pulling her closer. Her breath caught a bit.

He wasn’t going to have to fight her on this one. He was gonna have to fight himself. Suppose I’m pretty good at that, Adam thought. 

He nodded; bringing his forehead to hers stood in silent contradiction. They did not nuzzle, that was not something that could fall under “continuing” for them. And also: it stung a bit. He kissed her forehead in retreat and hoped she knew he moved back it was with physical discomfort, not the distancing of realization. Forehead kissing: also not something they did. Or maybe it was, now. 

Jaz just continued outlining her plan. “Then we reassess. Adjust our plan. Just like McG always does, right?”

Adam pulled her in again, the weight of one hand on her back suggesting she settle into him. “Alright, yeah. I think that’s right. Continue, reassess, adjust.” The embrace was too long to be a hug, the sort of hold they might have indulged had either of them been in pain. Jaz tucked her head under his. “We gonna stay like this?”

“Just for a bit. That okay?”

“Mmmm-hmm.”

}{}{}{}{

And nothing changed, not in any of the ways Top might have feared. He didn’t feel any differently on missions, didn’t pull Jaz back. He trusted her to be the badass he’d always known her to be. The team didn’t treat her any differently, though he was certain Preach and McG both knew things had been confessed. Sorta. He thought Amir might suspect they had been fighting the attraction, rather than carefully building the kind of trusting intimacy neither did easily. (At some point, he should check in with the team. He would; he just wanted a minute to be selfish about this...).

But they also did not change in any of the ways he longed for when he was honest with himself. He did not kiss her that night in the kitchen when Jaz suggested they were already in the middle of some kind of...wanting...thing. She did not back him into a wall with her hands and her mouth and her hips after yelling at him for not trusting her enough after Tehran. He didn’t do anything other than hold her tight when she snuck up on him while practicing her ninja skills.

It was fucking killing him.


	6. Maturation Phase II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Resolutions and orgasms and dealing with feeeelings. The mature way.

So. They wanted. It was confessed and accepted and _continuing._

Jaz was content with the wanting and with the continuing: letting stories surface, figuring out how to share bits of herself. Being bossy when she could. Top was already the one she came to the most - she just didn’t have to worry about him asking why now. And if the team saw that she put her hands on Top more often (and they did), no one said a word.

Adam. Well, Adam _wanted,_ and he supposed that wasn’t new, either. Except now he let himself think about whether Jaz wanted him, too. How she wanted him when she was ordering him about and why she wanted him when she sat close enough for his tired body to feel her heat. Those slow moments alone together as the op tempo waned. He knew they wouldn’t last - not when he wanted her _fast_ and _long_ and _all the damn time._

Surely all this...continuing...would morph into something else soon, right? 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

The first test of their new agreement came with his bright idea to use Jaz in a honeypot scheme. Dress her up in that half-zipped vest and skintight pants. Tactically, it was brilliant - for the op, for his own self interest. No way he wasn’t taking full advantage of the view.

She felt the heat in his eyes. Relished the way he looked her up and down. He could do that now - and she could call him out on it. “What are you doing?”

“I’m...assessing.”

Jaz made some sort of guttural noise of indignation covered _want_ and put her hands on her hips. Of course, cocking her hip like that just dragged his eyes downward again. 

“That’s not what we meant.” But her voice was low and her eyes were flashing and Top didn’t buy a thing she said. “It’s not?” His teasing surprised a full, trickling laugh out of her. “It’s definitely not.”

Adam was having way too much fun with this. Not just the outfit, though seeing Jaz like this, being almost-allowed to look, was definitely getting to him. No, the teasing, _the flirting,_ McG’s voice nudged inside his head, was quite possibly the most fun he’d had in years. Feigning a skeptical stance, he continued to poke at Jaz. “What did we mean, then…?”

“We are _not_ reassessing because you like how hot I am in this undercover get-up.”

Well shoot if that comment didn’t demand that he further consider said outfit. He looked back down and gruffed, “Always hot, Jazzy.” Jaz turned on her heels. “Okay, I gotta go catch an international bad guy.”

“Kay. Do good work.” His eyes twinkled.

}{}{}{}{}{}{

The trap worked. Neither of them could keep the ordeal - the exchange before Jaz headed to the bar, the way the outfit was snug against curves usually put out of mind - from colonizing their (quite separate) evening thoughts. In the morning, there was no time to decide between avoidance and admission.

}{}{}{}{}{}{

Their next test was after Preach was laid down, after Hoffman. After Dalton removed that cancer of a man from Patricia, his DIA family. After Top went dark and came back in black.

A few hours after the four of them reunited over Preach’s unconscious body, McG handed over a keycard to a nearby hotel in Adana. “Amir and I are taking a room a few floors up from you. The two of you should get some rest; I got first watch.” Top would have protested but he was going on 48 hours now without sleep. Instead, he took the keycard, put it in his back pocket, and sat back down next to Preach.

McG parted his lips and locked eyes with Jaz. Maybe her pull on him would work better than the doc’s. She approached him slowly from within his line of sight. He was avoiding her eyes, so she did the next best thing to establish contact: she took his hand. She felt his hand twitch, just a bit, as she threaded her fingers through his. He looked up when she tugged; she nodded toward the door. “Come on.”

“Jaz.” He fucking used his Command Voice. He went off grid, called up that darkness within and gave himself over to it, and now he was using his rank to push her away? Not a chance in hell that was working.

“Adam.” She exaggerated his tone and gave it right back, one hand balled up next to her leg, the other still tangled with his. Then, in her own voice, the one she used when she was convincing him to let her take care of him, “You’re no good here. Rest, then we come back ready to fight for him.” McG had to hand it to her: there wasn’t any hint of anger or frustration in her voice. Eyebrows up and expectant, eye contact steady, yet concerned. She was here for him, all the way. 

McG stood back from the couple. Too much presence and he might divide Adam’s attention, give him some unforeseen way to join him for the night instead of heading out with Jaz. 

Adam never even looked in his direction. He gave one pleading look at Jaz, a brief _I need to do this_ that landed unsuccessfully. Jaz gripped his hand firmly and neither tugged nor relented. She waited for his decision. Adam breathed in, licked his lips, and pushed himself up out of the chair. 

Jaz mouthed a silent “Thank you” as they walked past McG out of the room. 

}{}{}{}{}{}{

She didn’t drop his hand when they got out into the hall, or when they made it to the street, or even in the cab on their way to the Sheridan. She was still holding him tight when she opened the door to their room. Jaz pulled him in behind her. He was exhausted and mournful and more than a little angry still. He couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of the chair under his ass as he sat waiting for Hoffman. The smell of the other man’s sweat. 

A few steps into the room and his hand was empty. Jaz had let him go. Adam refocused on the present in time to see her back as she disappeared into the bathroom. He followed after her, standing in the doorway left open. She had the sink going, was wetting a new toothbrush. Each movement was efficient, intentional. Adam had seen this countless times before: Jaz was on mission. Maybe if he weren’t so exhausted, he would understand how that added to the knot in his stomach. Instead, he stood there watching her until she finished brushing her teeth and placed both hands, palm down, on the edge of the granite on either side of the sink. 

Without turning to look at him, without seeing herself in the mirror, she spoke. “It’s been a long day. I am going to take a shower.”

There was a pause, which felt both long and inconsolably brief. Then Jaz turned to the shower and started the hot water. Adam backed into the bedroom and closed the door. He would wait his turn and not fall asleep until he had it.

The sight of Jaz emerging in a towel, hair wet and in disarray around her shoulders, should have stirred something in Adam. All he felt was heavy and numb. His obstinate feet wouldn’t move him closer to her as she crossed to a bench opposite one of the beds. She was rifling through a bag. Was that one of his tees? 

“Go take a shower. Then we’re going to bed.”

“Jaz, I’m -” _tired, sorry, right here._ His throat felt like he hadn’t talked in days, like he hadn’t just been impersonating Preach’s wisdom around his sickbed. 

“Shower. Sleep. Then everything else.”

He followed orders. Stripped down, soaped up, cleaned his hair and his teeth. He found a pair of sleep pants and another tee in the bag. Jaz still wasn’t looking at him; he knew he wasn’t the only one hurting. Would she let him share the bed she was tucked into? He wavered at the foot of the bed before making the decision to crawl into it; doc said he needed to ask for help when he needed it.

“You gonna talk to me?”

Stillness. “No.” A beat. “Go to sleep.”

Adam stared at the ceiling. “I can’t. Not like this, with you so mad you won’t even look at me.” He took a deep breath, held it in, tried to let it out without shaking. “I fucked up. I didn’t trust my instincts and I didn’t protect my team and then I had to leave you all behind to catch up. And I just keep thinking I’d do it all over again if I had to.”

That got Jaz’s attention. She turned over towards him and demanded, “You’d do it again? Just like that?”

Her eyes were piercing right through him and he wanted her hand on his chest, pressing him back onto this bed, keeping him in place. But he didn’t know how to ask for it when he wasn’t bleeding out and her voice was so mean.

“Fucking bastard.” And she kissed him.

It was nothing like Adam had imagined for their first kiss - and he had thought a lot about kissing her. It was angry and messy and so unexpected his head was fuzzy. It was no mere peck on the lips: Jaz’s tongue swept in and lashed out at his. She hummed into it, wanting him and yelling at him still. It was over before he knew what was happening.

Jaz laid back down and rolled over almost violently, turning away from him with none of the finesse at her command. “I am still mad at you.”

Adam lay on his back looking over at her. He rubbed at his beard and absolutely did not touch his mouth like a green, lovesick boy. “I know, Jaz.”

“Go to sleep.” This time he did.

}{}{}{}{}{}{

The test that finally forced Top to put it all on the table didn’t require a mission or a bad guy or any other outside influence. Not even the intervention of their favorite local matchmaker medic. No, he just had his own damn self getting in the way.

He woke up the next day with his face in her neck, her hair tickling his forehead, his body curled around the back of her. He realized his arm was pressed into skin, her shirt bunched up. As soon as he realized it was probably inappropriate to be cradling her ribs in his sleep, Adam moved his hand to safer territory. He may or may not have dragged it across her side along the way; sleep still muddled his usual stalwart decisions. 

The trace of calluses across her skin woke Jaz just enough for her to move away from the tickling sensation, snuggling her body further back into Adam’s. Rubbing right up against parts of him that didn’t think this was an inappropriate situation at all. Adam didn’t think it was entirely beyond the bounds to let himself take a moment before moving back. They were just...continuing, right? He fit his face to the curve of her shoulder, braced his hand on her hip, and separated his hips from her ass. He let himself count to five through slow, slightly uneven breaths and then he rolled onto his back beside her.

She was mad at him; he could be good.

It took a few moments for the shift and lack of solid weight at her back to register in Jaz’s awareness. Adam knew it had when she rolled over toward his heat and protested with a few unintelligible mumbles. Predictable. He couldn’t help but take note of the gulf between Sleepy Jaz’s instincts and how she had reacted when very much awake last night.

“Jazzy…” She wrapped herself around his side, half on top of him. Her toes twined with his and her hand skidded across his stomach. “You’re mad at me, remember?”

“Mmm hmm. Am mad.” She snuggled into his shoulder and fisted his shirt next to her face.

He thought maybe she’d slip back into sleep. Like most everything else, Jaz liked to wake on her own terms. She was still splayed out over his side, face tucked into him when her hand slid lazily across his chest. He felt her shift further onto her side and automatically moved the arm around her to brace her back. Except he was only making way for her leg, apparently, which wrapped up and over his own thigh. And then she rubbed right up against him, one long roll of her hips. 

His breath stuttered. “Jaz.”

“Mmmmm.”

He brought his hand up to grasp her thigh, holding it still before he got into any more trouble. “Jaz.” Voice firm. “Our first time together can’t be like this.”

She whined and half sat up. “You think we won’t be having angry sex? Sleepy sex?”

“No, it’s - I just -”

She glared down at him and he was smitten all over again. “I _like_ sleepy sex, Adam.”

“Well I didn’t know that. Didn’t know we’d be having any kind of sex.” It was quiet and honest. That woke Jaz up more than a bit. Weren’t they on the same page? They both wanted something with each other, were going to figure out what that was. Adam had said so before holding her and leaving her and letting her bring him back from the edge. “You used to joke that you knew everything just by looking in these lady eyes, remember?”

Irritation washed over Adam’s face at the reminder. 

Jaz saw his predicament and relented. “Okay - reassessment.” Adam couldn’t resist getting her back a bit while she rolled off him and sat up against the headboard. “Thought we didn’t ‘reassess’ just because you were hot…”

She smacked him across the belly and he was that much less likely to calm his body down now. Fuck she was feisty as hell, even half-asleep.

That morning sex was going to be awesome.

“Okay. Reassessment it is.” He pulled himself up to sit next to her and waited for her to begin.

“I am going to be mad for awhile.”

Adam sobered up and froze in place. What had happened to the teasing?

“I know, Jaz.”

She didn’t look at him or acknowledge his soft agreement. Adam resolved to let her say her piece. They needed all the possibilities out on the table if they were going to properly reassess the situation. Even if some of them scared the hell out of him.

“I thought,” she grumbled a bit. This was the kind of mad he knew from her. Stubborn, but not patient. Not the kind that froze him out. “We’ve gotten close, yeah? I thought you’d at least _tell_ me…”

“I _know._ ”

“And when you didn’t, when you left and I knew you’d gone after him...We realized he had Preach’s gun. I’ve been afraid for you before. I can do afraid. But you didn’t talk to me. I don’t know if I can do that.”

It was inevitable and nothing he didn’t already know. Still, it felt like a blow to the stomach to hear it out loud. Adam raised his knees up and put his arms on them, building a cage out of his own body around the wild beating in his chest. Deep breaths: keeping it in, then out with the pain. And ask for what you want.

“I’m not used to talking.”

She sat there quietly. At least she had turned to look at him; Adam could feel her gaze in the prickle of his skin. “You tell me to talk to you all the time. We talk.”

“Not - about relationships. I mean...” And this was a big one. “I’m not sure I can always talk with you about what I need to do in the field.”

“That wasn’t the field.” That correction came out a near growl, her jaw was so tight. There was no room for cop outs in this discussion. Jaz moved her hand to the center of Adam’s back, felt her way up his spine to the back of his neck. There was, however, room for reminders.

Adam sat back and struggled for the right words. “It was, though. Was it off-book? Yes. Did I want to tell you I was going to murder that son of a bitch?” Her hand tightened on the scruff of his neck and his body automatically relaxed with the pressure. She was here. He could let her take care of him. He could.

“Fuck, Jaz! You don’t get that guy - the one inside of me that I _knew_ was coming out to end that waste of space. You don’t -”

“...but I get you?”

All the air in his lungs rushed out. When his face turned to her, it was painted in equal parts exasperation, adoration, and an awful lingering guilt. “Yes.”

“Okay. That’s good, that’s -” She was about to say _that was enough, that was all that matters, that was called A Relationship, wasn’t it?_ Instead, she took a moment. Ran her hand up the back of his head, then back down to her hold on his neck. Ask for what she needs. “And you’ll talk to me? When you need to - about that guy? Or about, whatever. About us.”

“Yeah. I can do that.” It felt like the first time he was injured in the field - really injured - and McG’s hands were holding him down, threading through his panic and his stupid, stubborn ontological uncertainty. Adam held himself still, leaning on that point of contact between them where he was held. Focused on that feeling. She had him. He was had.

Jaz nodded. “I’m sorry I brought up angry sex.”

Wait - what? Adam’s brain skidded. 

With a quirk of her eyebrow, Jaz continued. “It’s going to happen, though. You piss me off way too often for it not to.” Teasing. She was teasing him again. He was sitting bound to her hold on him and letting go of the kind of existential doubt that had wormed into his every cell...and she had moved on to, what, her kink list?

Up on her knees now and smirking down on him. She had listened. She _heard_ him. His anger - it was a trigger. It was going to get him in trouble with her. She was gonna fuck him through it anyway. Goddamn.

Angles and low contact points and the element of surprise. Adam tackled her back to the bed.

“We done reassessing, then?”

She laughed, hard and open. He felt the vibrations in his thighs where they wrapped around her middle. He’d never get tired of delighting her.

“Uh hunh. Yeah.”

“Yeah. Good.” He shifted his weight onto his arms on either side of her head. “We figure out where we stand?” He looked down at her middle where his shirt was creeping up again, scooting down to align himself better with her.

“Uh,” she licked her lips. “Think so.”

“So I get to do this now?” He leaned down towards her lips, changing direction at the last minute. This time with his face in her neck, her hair between mouth and skin, he could open his mouth. Scrape his teeth over skin. “Oh. Yeah - definitely do that.”

“You gonna be bossy the whole time?”

Jaz nodded slowly, trying to keep his mouth where she wanted it, right there on her pulse point. “You like me bossy.”

He sucked harder at that. It was true. She was so fucking hot. “Jasmine Kahn. You will be the death of me.”

“That’ll have to go…” Another delicious scrape of teeth, this time closer to her ear. “...in the next reassessment.” She brought her leg around his thigh, rolled her hips up, and moaned his name. “Adam…” 

“We’re just...continuing this.” He spoke into her mouth. “Uh hunh. But you said I get to _have_ you...” She leaned up the slight bit she needed to press her mouth into his. Wrapped her leg around him and used her foot to push down on his ass. Adam let her, mostly because he wanted to really feel it when she rubbed up against him. Freaking ninja used the distraction to flip them, though, landing nearly how they had been when they started this morning.

“Not fair!” he huffed, half-hearted but still competitive. She took his shirt up over her head, getting out “You complaining?” as she started pushing his up. The sight of his abs contracting as he sat up enough to let her pull it off of him did things to her. The sort of things she could act on, now that she knew he would let her. Like lick her way down until she reached the elastic at his waist. 

“No…” he gasped. The fingers toying under the waistband stopped. “No?” double-checked. “Not complaining,” Adam clarified, lifting his head up to look at her. Seeing Jaz’s hair spilled over him, her hands once again in motion was too much. His hips came up off the bed as she slid his sleep pants down. 

“Good,” she responded. He whined, either at her declaration or the sensation of her hands freeing his hard length. “Then I can do this?” 

Fucking vixen paused with her mouth just above him, waiting for him to _talk to her._ Payback and conditioning and such a fucking tease.

He lifted his head again, found her eyes. “Fuck, Jaz. You can do whatever you want.” He didn’t even care if that came out on a bit of a whine.

“Hmm.” She was mouthing his tip, using one hand to hold him ready for her mouth. The other hand held down his hip and that, just that, pushed Adam so much closer to letting go. He wanted her hands holding him into their bed, holding him where she wanted him. He could ask for what he wanted now.

“Jaz,” he thread his hand into her hair, tugged the back of her head. “Come here. Come -”

She sat up, still leaning forward. Those gorgeous breasts he hadn’t even started to memorize yet were within his grasp. He could just see the curve of her ass behind her. Both were distracting as she taunted him, “Anything _I_ want?” 

He scooted down and scooped her up and pressed a messy kiss on that impertinent mouth. They stayed like that, kissing with her sitting in his lap, until Adam remembered why he interrupted her in the first place. “Want you riding me. Can we do that?” He ran his hands down the small of her back, running them into her panties and onto her ass. They wanted to grasp her into him; his hips wanted to shift against her wet heat.

Jaz was nodding, face still close to his. “Yeah.” He kissed her again. When she felt his fingers looping into her panties, she laughed breathily and grasped each hand in hers. His furrowed forehead asked a question and she pushed off of him. “You go get the condom; I’ll take care of these.”

Jaz was laying mostly naked on a bed beside him, pulling down her panties. Adam couldn’t move. 

She shoved him with her bare foot. “Go!”

The pair of dress pants he had been wearing last night were in a heap on the floor in the bathroom. The wallet in the back pocket still held a condom in a cliche move straight out of his early 20s. Adam grabbed it and started back towards the bed. The carpet under his feet and he stuttered to a stop. Jaz was on the bed, legs open, head back, eyes closed, rubbing her fingers on her clit. How was he supposed to make progress on any plan when she was wet and open and squirming like that?

“Thought…Mmmm!” She was so hot, letting him see her like this. “...thought you wanted something?”

Adam slid onto the mattress, tossing the condom onto the bedside table. One hand moved onto the mattress next to her thigh, the other ghosting just above the inside of her knee. “Jaz.”

“Yeah. Uh hunh?”

He was so close to the slick center of her. “You wanna come, Jazzy?”

She was supposed to be waiting for him for...something. This was just a tease while he was away, just to keep her going. Looking down at him between her thighs, though, she couldn’t think of anything else.

“Yeah. You gonna make me?”

He kept his eyes on hers at first, but then his mouth was on her and she was grabbing his hair with sticky fingers. Adam’s tongue just kept flicking around her clit, running down the sides of her and then back to the sensitive nub. Those strong palms were holding her thighs open, one cupped around to her ass, and she wasn’t going to last very long. Not with this kind of attention. 

When she came, Adam kept still. Just held his mouth and beard against her and let her press and press. He resisted his own hips answering movements and let her ride it out until she was limp in the sheets. 

“So good. Your mouth...you’re so good.”

Adam crawled up to meet her, wiping his hand across his beard. The swipe revealed a shine and a smile. “You know I won’t ever be able to hear you call me that again without remembering how you taste.”

Jaz whined a bit. She still wanted to lavish him with praise when he was struggling to accept it. Wondered if he would try to stop her if they weren’t in bed.

She pushed on his chest, testing his willingness to follow orders now that she’d given up a bit of herself to him. His hard chest yielded, falling back onto the mattress next to her. He only pushed up against her hands when she rubbed her wet slit against his length. “I think you said something about riding?” In answer, his hands found her hips and he dragged her against him again. God, she already knew she was going to come again and he wasn’t even inside her yet.

The condom was on the table and Jaz had to lean back, stretched up into an arch to reach for it. Adam reeled up with her and latched onto one of her breasts. The nipple hardened in his mouth as Jaz’s hand closed around the foil packet. As she pushed back up and over Adam, she aimed her hands to land on his shoulders against the mattress. Adam groaned and took the packet from her hand, ripping it open. 

Jaz just chuckled at his need. As soon as he had rolled it on, Jaz took his hands in hers and put them over her hips. “You wanna hold on or you want me to hold you back?”

She glided over his cock, pressed until just the tip was inside. Then she stopped moving, waiting for an answer.

“Damn it, Jaz!” But he didn’t push up and he didn’t move his hands under hers. She slid down in one slow move until he was seated fully inside her. “Ughhhhh. God you’re so good. Feel so good, Adam.”

She rode him like that, slow but steady. When he felt her starting to lose her rhythm, he sat up and tightened his grip. His mouth was on her neck as he moved her back into that sweet persistent rocking. “You gonna come again, Jaz?” She moaned. “You’re so tight on me, gonna make me really feel it, hunh?”

She started thrusting harder, trying to lean back. He moved one hand up to brace her, keep her close. That strong forearm wouldn’t let her move away from him and she needed just a slightly different angle. 

“Adam.” Her voice was rough, lower than usual. “Adam, I need to - ohhhh.” 

He reached around front to press firmly on her belly, tilting her back just enough. His cock hit that spot inside that made her see starbursts, once, twice, and she flew over the edge again. 

The fluttering around his aching cock had Adam falling backwards, unable to hold himself up against her. Gravity combined with her own release had Jaz following him down. She was panting with her pleasure and forcing herself up onto her hands and grinding obscenely in long, slow strokes. One sweaty hand moved into the center of his chest and Adam’s body uncoiled, his orgasm unfurling down the base of his cock. 

“Jaz! Fuck, Jaz - I!” A second wave hit and he was arching up into that steady fucking hand. “Oh! Ohhh! God.”

When he was done and relaxed and couldn’t move a muscle, Jaz slid to his side. “We’re gonna have to work on that.”

“Sweetheart, we work any harder at that, I’m gonna die in the process.”

She harrumphed in amusement, not disagreeing, “No - all that noise you make. We’re going to need to be substantially quieter.”

He considered a moment, trying to get his brain back on board with their conversation. “For the continuing?”

She kissed his shoulder, then laid her head down to drift off. “For the continuing.”

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

An hour or so later, Adam’s mind finally caught up with the implications when Jaz interrupted their dozing.

“You’re telling McG.” He bet Jaz thought that commanding voice could get him to do anything.

“Oh, I don’t know. _You_ were the one who kissed _me_ last night.”

“I did. I did do that.”

A bit quieter, he asked, "Still mad at me?"

"You've almost made up for it." He pinched her side and she barely squirmed away. "We'll see how you do today at the hospital."

Adam snuggled down deeper into her side and he offered a compromise. “Tell you what - you tell McG; I’ll tell Preach.”

He felt her breath pause a beat. “He’s gonna be just as awful. Deal.”

Ask for what you want, even if you aren’t sure you’ll get it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come help me build my fandom playthings into a tumblr worthy of following at gentlesquid_andink


	7. A Healthy Immune System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so, McG was convinced. Mortem Actual had returned to Incirlik with a fully functioning, healthy team. He just hadn’t counted on giving his own blood to test that theory.

He had done it, McG was pretty sure. The team was fully operational. 

Preach had developed a habit of letting him know each time he fixed some small ailment himself. Said he liked to keep the medic’s mental files on point. (Those mental files on Elijah were still complete; they would be the last piece of his friend he would let go and it wasn’t happening any time soon). It might be with a great deal of exaggerated emphasis on the temporary nature of their cease fires, but Amir kept McG fully in the loop on his medical needs, physical and mental. Adam had helped bring Jaz around. Everyone on his team was ready and willing to engage in appropriate medical protocol and to trust him to provide them with the care they needed. 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

Confirmation came disguised as tiny moments in their regular days in the Quonset, as much as it did in the major moments of medical catastrophe. Like when Jazzy was down for a day or two and McG handed her the last emery board as a bribe for good behavior. It was late - or...early? - but he walked from her room to the kitchen to add them the running supplies list before some other distraction got in the way. Like sleep. Really he was surprised he hadn’t noticed how low their stock was the last time he was doling them out.

Yet there on the paper on the fridge, amid ‘saffron’ and ‘mangoes’ in the ‘specialty items’ section, was ‘emery boards’ in Amir’s fine script. Said intelligence officer was getting ready to head into Adana to beat the morning rush on the market. McG handed him the guiding list. “I was going to add ‘emery boards’ for Jazzy, but you already took care of that. Thanks.” 

“I figure we all survive her injuries with more dignity when she’s feeling adequately distracted.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Amir was scanning the list. “We should get a canister of oatmeal - not the instant kind, real oats. And some more brown sugar.”

McG was curious. Was this about some kind of DIY face scrub? Because Jaz did love some pampering when she wasn’t feeling like herself... 

“For a mask? Didn’t know you knew those recipes, too.” 

Amir cocked his head. “For cookies. Isn’t that one of the things you usually do when she’s injured? She can sit out here later and pretend to boss me around while I make them for her.”

Hunh. Maybe Amir was a better spy than he gave him credit for being (though it didn’t take special training to figure out Jaz was a sugar fiend…). “Yeah, that’s not pretending. And Jaz prefers chocolate chip cookies, not oatmeal. The American kind.”

“Oh I know. These have oatmeal _powder_ in them. Adds complexity to the flavor without changing the texture. Plus they take longer to prepare, so…”

“Dude. They’re chocolate chip cookies - they’re not supposed to be complex.” Amir was nonplussed. “And I use my mother’s recipe.”

Preach glanced up from the table where he was finishing his after action report and added, “You don’t mess with Mama McGuire’s baking.”

Amir threw up his arms and shrugged with faux consideration. “I’m just saying - I think that’s a question best answered with science.” Preach dismissed their one-upmanship. This was a fool’s errand. “We should let Jaz judge the bake off. Preach, surely you have a family recipe?” Or maybe it wasn’t so foolish. His grandma’s chewy chocolate chip walnut cookies were pretty darn good. “Let’s do this. I’ll need molasses and a bag of walnuts…”

Just like that, Amir was using the intel he had gathered on his team to orchestrate the first of several competitions to win Jaz’s stingy praise and approval. She declared McG’s cookies “All Time Best,” while creating a separate category for Amir’s “Best Updated Classic.” Crafty little thing might be down to one non-scratched cornea, but her eyes still saw everything.

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

The morning after Top took out that cancer of a sleeper agent, Preach was settled into his room with his wife at his unconscious side. She had flown all night to reach them while McG kept watch. He had a few buddies on staff; they let him snag some rest next to Patricia’s room while the Carters reunited. No one wanted to be in the way, but he couldn’t quite leave yet, either. Someone from the team would stick close by until Preach was either awake or transferred closer to home. 

Amir should be relieving him soon and McG hadn’t decided if he would head back to the hotel. Instead, it was Jaz who entered his room mid-morning. “So, I lost this bet.” Jaz rarely bet when she could lose. This was either amazing or very very bad. He sat up as she sat down next to him.

“With who?” McG clarified.

Jaz sighed; she knew where McG was going with this. “Top.”

The blood had become a bit sluggish in his veins after a night sitting vigil with Preach, but McG’s heart picked up at that. He pushed his worry for their friend aside and tried to prepare for whatever it was Top was getting Jaz to do. It had to be something pretty big if he was welching on handling it himself. Then again, McG had seen the state he was in when he returned to them, when he had sent him off with Jaz to help fight his battles as best they could. Rubbing his eyes a bit, he ground out, “Lemme have it, then.”

Jaz just arched her eyebrows and commented in that caustically concerned way of hers. “You haven’t slept in, what, 24 hours now? You’re not ready for anything besides a bed.”

“And maybe some good news,” he agreed. “Still - Adam okay?”

Which, damnit. Now she really had to tell him. She never thought this would become about offering McG the support he needed than about choosing to share the things in her life with people who cared about her. Her tactically brilliant love probably knew it would translate this way, though. Jaz would get him back for that later.

“Yeah, yeah. He’s -” she considered her words. “...better.” They both knew it would take more than even a good night to get some of those monsters back in their cages.

“So, not -” Jaz gestured across the hall where Preach was still tied up in tubes and wires and sterilized hopes. “- but. Good news.” She took a breath. Looked to the ceiling and shook her head to herself in anticipatory self-defeat. “AdamandIfinallygottogether.”

“I’m sorry - what?”

“Like, together-together.” She confirmed. Like they were in ninth grade. “We...had a conversation. I may have yelled a bit. But! I also kissed him first!” McG high-fived her and, in her relief at having shared their new, slightly mind-boggling progress out loud, Jaz automatically met his hand mid-air.

“How did _that_ happen? I mean, not that we didn’t all see it coming. Because we did. But please. Details.”

“Wait - have you all been betting on this!?” 

The unimpressed, steady expression that continued on McG’s face was all the answer she needed. Besides, she decided she was too happy with the end result to care. Jaz pressed on, “We did like you’re always saying, we reassessed. And there was a lot of asking for what we want.” That was euphemistically-speaking, he was sure. Jaz shrugged her shoulders. “Adam...got me talking. Kept me talking. And I just kept holding him down so he wouldn’t freak out.”

“Holding him down, hunh?” Jaz punched his arm at that, but not at full force. “You know how he gets…”

McG was thoroughly amused. They were using his principles for medical relationships to work out their actual relationship? McG opened his arms and insisted on a hug. He didn’t even care if Jaz rolled her eyes as she indulged him. 

She was still curled against his chest as she shared,“Top is in there telling Preach. Or at least, he better be! I don’t care if he has to tell him all over again when he wakes up.”

_If he wakes up,_ neither of them said. McG tried to focus on the possibilities, and right now the only light and laughter before them were at his little Jazzy’s expense. “Who’s telling Amir?”

Jaz looked up hopefully with a suggestion on her face. “No. No, I am not telling him. God no.”

“Oh come on!”

“Hey, I’m not the one who fell in love, Jazzy! These are the burdens that come with that joy. You gotta sing it out!” Jaz hmphed into his shoulder, but she did not do any of the things he knew meant she was in actual distress: there was no stillness, no withdrawing from his casual embrace. No mean rejoinder. His mind went down the checklist on autopilot, even as his mouth ran on the same.

“Besides, Patricia will update Noah and Hannah to keep an eye on the team dynamics. I’m sure Hannah will tell him.” If he hadn’t been so tired, he probably would have kept that whole line of logic to himself. Jaz immediately pulled back even as he was wishing he had thought less about teasing her and more about whether she was really ready for this. 

The look of horror on her face, though - what had she thought would happen if they were going to be together? McG wrapped her up in his arms again and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, everyone’s been rooting for you two for, like, years. I’m pretty sure Patricia knew you were both in love before either of you did.”

Where did they think he had learned about how to handle them in the first place?

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

During the first vetting interview, Top asked McG about the worst situation he’d ever been in as a medic. 

“There was this guy, an operative we were working with from some covert op. Somewhere along the way, the guy had put together some pieces of a puzzle he was never supposed to have, never mind solve. We were there on ground support when he got hit and just...kept going. He was so paranoid he almost died from what should have been a superficial wound. Developed sepsis and hadn’t told anyone he was shot.”

Seemed fairly basic in Top’s estimation. He had figured there would be something messier in the doctor’s experience that he could offer.

“You’re asking the wrong question, though,” he looked up at Dalton. “Sir.”

Deputy Director Campbell had included a note with this one’s file. “Deceptively intuitive. Even better than XM.” Top wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be an endorsement or a warning. Patricia knew the precise weft and warp of his personal demons. He could see how she might worry that too much pushing from someone under his command could unbalance the deep compartmentalization on which he relied. Without it, he might stop taking the risks that sharpened the tip of the spear. And if he could no longer calculate those risks and execute them - successfully, if not flawlessly - what good was he to anyone?

Didn’t stop him from seeing exactly how well that quality could work in a field medic, though. Especially knowing his own occasional reluctance to pause and let himself be taken care of. Sure, McG could hold his own in hand-to-hand and his ability to completely switch gears mid-op was a rare asset. There were ten others just like that in the pile handed to Dalton to fill the spot. If he could figure out when and how much pressure to apply to his CO when he was in need? That could prove invaluable.

“What you want to know is how I convinced him.”

“Come again, soldier?”

“You don’t care what the circumstances were - things were shitty. They always get shitty. This kind of shitty was paralyzing to the operative, but might be a day at the beach for you. For your team. Omega teams are different, right? What you want to know is how I convinced him to let me help. To accept what he knew he needed, but couldn’t admit was the most pressing issue at hand.”

Top narrowed his face, not caring if that gave anything away.

“Okay, then. How’d you do it?”

“I didn’t. He did. All I did was listen.”

One look at the headshot of McG clipped to his folder and Dalton could see how much heart the guy had. Dalton might be a bit relentless in his own bid to the top, he knew that. Maybe not as paranoid as any of the spooks, but he was maybe known to resist medical assistance when he could use it. He also knew this soldier’s ability to be wholeheartedly present with others might make the difference between his team following doctor’s orders to retreat and them bleeding out in a haze of adrenaline on the field. The guy had heart and sometimes that’s all you could stand to follow.

“Well, and ask the right questions. That always helps.”

Cheeky bastard. Patricia was going to have fun watching this.

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

Just as McG had predicted, no one was surprised to hear that Top and Jaz were proving each other wrong when it came to love and family. It was too clear they made each other happy and when team was like family, that’s all you wanted for each other. Plus Preach had one the betting pool, which seemed only right.

No one would say it out loud, but they _were_ surprised when Preach made sufficient recovery to stay enlisted...and then chose not to retire. “Each of us must face our trials - and we come out wiser on the other side.” Adam, Jaz, himself: who knew which person’s wisdom was wrapped up in Preach’s vaguely prophetic pronouncement this time.

And so, McG was convinced. Mortem Actual had returned to Incirlik with a fully functioning, healthy team. He just hadn’t counted on giving his own blood to test that theory.

The mission went fine - other than McG getting sliced across the forehead. He held shaky hands against several messy head wounds that obscured his vision with pain and plans going sideways. With a nod, Preach took over coordinating exfil while Top joined Jaz at his side. 

“That’s a lot of blood, Top. What’s our plan?”

Top redirected that question to the injured sargeant with a nod. 

“It’s okay, I’m okay. Head wounds always look worse than they really are.”

“Joe - that sounds like wishful thinking. You sure you’re being honest with us here?” Shit, Top was using his first name. Maybe they were both a bit rattled.

“It’s fine. We’re gonna clean things up, wrap the shit out of my head, and get me back to base for care. Simple, yet effective.” They were looking at each other, rather than at him. Trying to decide whether they should trust him with waiting for hours before seeking real treatment. Fuck. This was about more than the best course of action for feeding his vanity.

“Shit. Okay, let’s call that Plan B.”

Jaz’s eyes were the best barometer of her sense of self-efficacy in any given situation. The wide circles they were making were not good. “What’s Plan A?”

“Top? You’re gonna get the kit in my bag. Find the lidocaine and the surgical pack.”

While he was grabbing the medic’s backpack, McG took a minute to check in with Jaz. “How you doing? Still with me here?”

Jaz choked a bit on her chuckle. “You’re the one who’s injured - I’m supposed to be the one keeping you calm.”

“Eh. You’ll make up for it back on base with some post-op care.”

“I’ll start planning immediately.” That dry tone was never so satisfying to McG’s ear. 

“What are you planning, Jaz? Besides prepping the instruments for me? Guys, this is no time for joking - I need you focused.” Oh God. Adam had returned and was going all hyper command. 

“Get me Amir! He’s better with the needle.”

“Amir’s working on transportation. Jaz, you got that needle or what?” She actually sucked on the thread before pulling it through the surgical needle.

 

“Jazzy! Germs!” She just rolled her eyes and laid a big smacking kiss on his cheek while handing the needle over to Top. “None you don’t already have…”

“That...is _not_ how that works. Top, if you don’t use the tiniest stitches you have ever imagined, I will haunt you for the rest of your days, so help me.” McG knew he was being ridiculous and vain; he didn’t have to care. Jaz was going to tease him about it anyway and he wasn’t being half as cagey a patient as either of them were when they first started out together. 

“Think we figured out what happens when McG needs to be cared for in the field.” Top’s eyes were twinkling, instead of shooting daggers, and Jaz actually chuckled. “Wonder what he would have done if this had been an actual, legit stabbing…”

McG didn’t even care that frowning made the gashes in his forehead hurt worse. “I am right here, guys.”

Before beginning, Adam cupped McG’s right cheek in hand and swiped his thumb over the top of his cheek. He noticed Top sending a look over towards Jaz and then her arm was behind his back, a hand squeezing the top of his shoulder. “We got you, Joe,” she added. 

What should have taken forty five minutes, an hour tops, stretched out into two and a half long, painful hours. Twice Amir had to reroute their transportation and midway through, they ran out of lidocaine. McG didn’t even have to ask for Jaz to hand him a painkiller and a sip of water. By the time they were done, McG could barely keep his eyes open. “You want a fireman’s carry or can you make it to the plane, you think?” McG tried to focus on the words coming out of Top’s mouth instead of the wrinkles on his forehead. “We can play fireman later. Just give me a hand here.”

Adam did not allow himself to laugh out loud. That would be inappropriate leadership during a medical crisis. His smirk was response enough as he hoisted McG’s arm over his shoulder and steadied him on his feet.

“Seriously, McG?” Jaz couldn’t help it. “Thought you said you didn’t get loopy like this one,” she jerked her head towards Top. 

“McG’s a flirt when he’s dead sober - what else did you expect?” Preach interjected, highly amused at the entire scene.

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

It felt good knowing the team could pull through these kinds of medical setbacks without any lasting trauma. Preach was still steady as a rock, still stepped back and let Top fumble his way through field surgery and watched Jaz while she looked to Top for assurance. Amir coordinated and reconfigured and assembled details on the fly as the scene kept changing before them. 

And bless their local “it” couple’s hearts - they were handling aftercare like they had trained for it. Which, he thought, they kinda had?

The plane ride lasted about as long as the percocet. As they shuffled home to the Quonset, Adam asked about pain management. “You want another painkiller? ‘There’s no shame in accepting chemical intervention,’ or so I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, but I think I’m gonna stick with something lighter. I’ll take something before getting cleaned up for bed.”

Jaz caught up with them as they entered the hut. “McG, you take first shower in my bathroom.” Amir shook his head. As if any of the guys had been planning to beat him to it. Jaz eyed McG and asked, “You good on your own?”

“Jesus, Jazzy - it’s a few deep cuts! Not a broken leg or anything!”

“Well fine then. I won’t send my boyfriend in with you.” She smacked Adam’s ass as he headed to the guys’ bathroom. Dear God, he wasn’t _that_ bad a flirt, was he? Jaz just shook her head as she bundled McG off to her bathroom. He must be more affected than he was letting on - he didn’t even tease her about using the “b” word.

By the time she came back out after her own quick scrub down, said boyfriend was serving McG the soup Amir had thawed and reheated. She paused just outside the living area to observe a bit. “Gotta get something in that stomach to go with the drugs,” she heard Adam insist in that voice usually reserved for soft talks in their bed. “When Jaz gets back, we’ll help you unwind - unless you changed your mind about something stronger tonight?” McG just shook the offer out of mind. Adam was practically holding McG up against his side on the couch as they both ate.

“And get started on negotiations.” Jaz unfolded from the hallway. 

Adam was torn between rolling his eyes in memory of just how outrageous Jaz could get when she was in need of comfort herself and earnest support of their fallen medic. “Whatever you need, man.”

“That’s sweet of you guys, really.”

“Mmmm, you should ask for Adam’s foot massages. He does this thing with your toes - you do not want to miss out on that.”

“And we’ll get Amir to the market first thing tomorrow. Assign him meals all week.”

“Two weeks,” Jaz suggested. “Two weeks,” Top extended the offer. Maybe he should just get Jaz to negotiate his aftercare package on his behalf. 

“And I maaaay have secured a copy of the Warcross sequel while we were in Greece. I have no idea if it’s any good or anything…”

“Jaz.” He got up and pulled her into a hug. “I can’t believe it took me getting slashed to bits for you to offer up your smuggled stash.” He yawned, any remaining energy quickly fading as the adrenaline joined the percocet in leaving his system.

“I trust you to pick up negotiations in the morning.” He pointed back and forth between the two of them. “You two have really been paying attention, hunh? God, no one’s even insisted I head over to the hospital tonight.” 

Adam and Jaz looked at each other. McG wasn’t sure if that was a “whoops” or a “you tell him” or something else entirely. When had they started their own coupled off language? Guess they had figured out this whole caring thing even better than he had initially thought. 

Later, he would be unable to recall which one of them had responded, “We’ll just keep figuring that out together, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'll. This was the first fanfic I've written and the response and support from the fandom was just so welcoming and lovely. The encouragement was there, so sorry it took a while for me to polish the resolution in this final chapter. Hope you enjoyed it, particularly since we won't be getting the same kind of resolution for the show.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a quote attributed to Hippocrates: "Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity." Describing, in no order of importance: Jaz's path to trusting her team (and, you know, people), the careful conditions under which Top trusts himself over to others, the ability for these two idiots to figure out how to be together. 
> 
> We see a lot of Preach and his knowing glances as Top and Jaz circle each other. You can't tell me McG hasn't diagnosed what's going on, as well...

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All the Opportunity in the World(s)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486715) by [gentlesquid_andink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlesquid_andink/pseuds/gentlesquid_andink)




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